Nosgoth's Salvation
by Nocturnallydamned
Summary: Part 3 of 3. Raziel is on a mission to restore balance to Nosgoth. Kain has other plans. COMPLETED. Epilogue & Review Responses added
1. Insanity

_Disclaimer: I do not own Eidos Interactive, Crystal Dynamics, Soul Reaver, Blood Omen or any of the characters in any of these games. I do however own a broken-down car, a dirt-cheap widescreen TV and several pairs of knickers with Clan symbols on the front._  
  
  
  
Deborah White put down her pen and peered over the top of her horn-rimmed glasses at the room's other occupant. Her patient today was a young man in his early twenties: dark-haired, dark-skinned, dressed as usual in scruffy black jeans and a T-shirt with a cleverly-worded insult plastered across the front. He lay tensely on the leather couch, hands clenched, beads of perspiration speckling his upper lip and forehead, and semi-circles like bruises under his round, haunted eyes. Deborah sighed to herself. Computer game corporations had a lot to answer for.

"Let's say it again, shall we?"

"Do we have to?" asked the young man.

Deborah regarded him sternly.

He sighed heavily and recited in a toneless voice, "There are no such things as vampires."

"And?"

"Nosgoth does not exist outside of a computer game."

"And?"

"Kain is someone I dreamed up."

"And?"

"!Joder, mujer - basta ya!"

"Swearing at me in Spanish will not help your case, Mr Alvarez."

The youth sat up, the leather of the couch creaking reluctantly as his jeans detached themselves from the heated surface with a sound like tearing velcro. He afforded the overpaid shrink a weary glance.

"Are we done?"

"I don't know, Mr Alvarez, are we? If I let you walk out of here today, are you going to behave yourself?" He scowled at her. "We wouldn't want a repeat performance of your antics at the convention, would we?"

He shook his head slowly, the memory of a night in Newport's less-than sanitary prison cell all too vivid. With a repeat appointment card stuffed into one grimy pocket, he left the stuffy office for the heat and bustle of the city street, all blaring horns, screaming children and human trash. The glaring midday sun beat down on his head with an almost rhythmic persistence, and he took to kicking a can along the litter-strewn pavement as he retraced his steps back to work. He had only agreed to go along to see the blasted psychiatrist because of the media frenzy that had erupted after the last Gamers' Convention. The 'antics' to which Ms White had referred had constituted little more than his playful attempt at biting one of the fans who had asked for his autograph. Given the nature of the game they were marketing, the scandal had actually turned into a most successful publicity stunt. Unfortunately, the big cheeses at Head Office had to be appeased, and so it was that he was undergoing psychiatric evaluation in the full glare of the public eye.

Still, at least the money was pouring in.

The months went by, and Summer's ardour finally gave sway to the cooler temperament of Autumn, transforming the city by the sea from a tourist- fraught hell-hole to a red- and gold-tinged haven. Spirits were high within the teen population: this season would see the release of the long- awaited sequel to the highly successful game to which, once again, Javier R. Alvarez had put his name. It was in fact at the initial Press Conference for the impending release of Soul Reaver 2 that Javier first saw them.

The day had gone well: the Press had been kept well-fed and liberally watered, and consequently the nitpicking had been kept to a minimum. The discussion had just turned to potential release dates when the double doors at the back of the conference room opened quietly, allowing admittance to a man and a woman who took up positions at the left-hand side of the door. Javier cringed, closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his forehead. That was the only drawback with the world-wide phenomenon that was Soul Reaver - it had brought out all sorts of nuts. These two had all the classic signs. They were dressed entirely in black, faces paled with white foundation, each sporting prosthetic ears and, more than likely, although he couldn't tell from this distance, dental plates with those acrylic fangs that he'd seen at far too many conventions over the past year. Sunglasses added a finishing touch - although it made them look more Goth than 'Nosgoth'. The only thing that these two were missing to get a full score on Javier's 'Soul Reaver Nut-ometer' was a clan symbol.

They probably had tattoos.

As the discussions drew to a close, Javier grabbed his jacket, exchanged the bare minimum of pleasantries with the Head Honcho who had come down especially for the conference, and darted out of the Fire Exit. The last thing he needed this evening was a run-in with a couple of deluded game- addicts hell-bent on bullying him into listening to their morbid ideas for the next installation of the story. He negotiated the rusted stairway of the fire escape with a blatant lack of grace, snagging his favourite jacket on a rusty nail before dropping the last five feet into an oily puddle. He swore mightily. Brushing the worst of the splashes from his jeans, he looked up to see that the pair from the Press Conference had apparently guessed his plans and stood waiting for him at the end of the alleyway.

Javier groaned. "Why me?"

Casting a glance at the back end of the alley, he saw a large skip and a couple of oil barrels that looked like they would stand his weight. With a smug chuckle, he headed for them, quickly clambering over the top of the chain-link fence that bisected the passageway and then jogging off towards the orange glow of the sulphur streetlamps at the far end of the alley. A few moments' walk brought him to the main road, and, still a little shaky from the stalkers' dogged attentions, he stepped into an Irish theme pub to sink a few before heading home. Halfway through his third Guinness, he happened to look at his reflection in the mirrored backing of the shelves behind the bar. They had followed him. Without turning around, he paid his tab, left his beer and sauntered nonchalantly towards the exit. Unable to walk through the door without checking to see if the nutcases were following, Javier cast a glance over his shoulder. They were on their feet. 

Throwing caution to the wind, he wrenched open the door, dived from the bar and fell head-first into a yellow cab that had stopped outside.  
Seeing that the couple had still not given up the pursuit, he rolled down the window and yelled, "Get a life!" as the vehicle accelerated, leaving the pale-skinned pair alone in the darkened street.

An hour later, Javier had calmed somewhat. On returning home, he turned on the lava lamp, cranked the stereo up with a mix of Chilli Peppers and Hendrix and sat down with a tuna-mayo sandwich, the one snack guaranteed to set the world to rights. As he munched he began to reminisce on the brush with insanity that had spawned the source of tonight's troubles. There had been a time not so many years ago, when he had been more than half- convinced that he had travelled from Earth to a previously unknown planet. He had believed that it was his experiences on this 'Nosgoth' that had inspired him to write the game that, even now, was topping up his bank account on a daily basis. Months of psychiatry (with a shrink even less understanding than the pretentious sow he was seeing now) had finally convinced him the 'experiences' to which he had attributed his inspiration had amounted to little more than a mescaline dream. The authorities at the company for which he worked generously decided to overlook this minor illegality in the face of their impending fortune. Javier shook his head and returned to his sandwich. Money really was the root of all evil.

A few nights later, Javier found himself in his favourite club, and, having spent the entirety of his weekly gains on innumerable rounds of beers for himself and his friends, was even now impressing the local ladies with his oh-so-sexy impression of John Travolta's 'Saturday Night Fever' dance. Finding himself out of cash as he resumed his seat on the floor (the padded bench had recently started to resemble a mini-mountain he had no desire to climb), he turned to one of his friends from work to tell him it was his turn to obtain the beverages. At least that was the plan. What actually came out of his mouth was something closer to 'Gogeddadrinks I godda siddown.' Fortunately well-used to interpreting Javier's beer-speak, his friend realised it was that time of the night and headed off to the bar in search of a large jug of water.

As his friend departed, Javier's blurred vision cleared momentarily to reveal that the two fanatics from the Conference were seated in a booth not ten feet away, watching him. The realisation did far more to sober the man than any amount of freezing water would. In a moment of rare subtlety, Javier clambered to his feet and staggered towards the men's room, to all appearances about to rid himself of the contents of his stomach. Refraining from the temptation to glance behind him this time, he changed course at the last minute to bolt out of the main door, knocking down the 300 pound gorilla that guarded the entrance in the process. Joe's surprise at the youth's success in bowling him over was compounded as a split-second after regaining his feet, he was knocked flat out again by a pale-skinned woman who bounded out in hot pursuit. As the inner door was thrown wide once more, he decided to remain where he sat - an act which probably saved his life as a giant of a man with long, dark hair hurried through the foyer, the ground shaking beneath his booted stride.

Joe remained on the floor and began to reconsider his choice of career.

Out in the fresh air once again, Javier's head began to clear. If he was honest with himself, he had no real reason to run from these people, and in fact, if he had stayed with his friends, he would probably have had more chance of getting them to leave him alone. However, his initial instinct had compelled him to run, and as his mother was fond of telling him, he was ever one for acting first and thinking later. His steps slowed to a jog and shortly to a walk as he attempted to catch his breath and slow his alcohol- and adrenaline- enhanced heartbeat. As his steps resounded from the walls of the club car park in which he now found himself, he became aware that there were too many echoes. He closed his eyes in resignation and turned to face the sight he knew awaited him.

The car park was deserted.

Breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief, Javier began the long walk home, the need to clear his head overriding his temptation to call a cab, and besides, his pockets were empty.

After an hour's walk and a brief but profound argument with a vagrant on the meaning of life, Javier committed himself assiduously to the tricky task of inserting his key into the keyhole, a feat well-known as the bane of late-night revellers everywhere.

"So, cabron, you think you can defeat me?" he asked the keyhole derisively. "You cannot hope to prevail against my power. . ." He squinted at the lock in a most intimidating manner. ". . .For I am Raziel! Lord of the . . . Sluagh . . . oh for the love of . . . OPEN UP!" He shook the door forcedly before taking a step back and affording the stubborn portal a warning glare.

"I'll reave your soul . . ."

"That's the most normal thing I've heard him say so far." Commented a voice from behind him.

Javier froze.

"He's talking to a door." Countered another, deeper voice.

"Well, yes, but at least he admitted his true identity." Replied the lighter voice, evidently a female.

"To a door." Insisted the other.

Javier decided it was time he got these two lunatics off his back once and for all. As he turned to face them with one of the most insulting phrases he knew forming on his lips, something about the couple gave him pause for thought. They looked familiar. Admittedly, most of these Nosgoth Nuts dressed similarly anyway, but there was something in the gleam of the man's golden eyes (novelty contact lenses were far too readily available these days, he mused) and the way the woman carried herself that curbed the insult before it could be voiced.

"Why are you two following me?" he asked.

"We've come to take you back." Replied the woman with a friendly grin.

"Back where?" he asked resignedly, knowing what their answer would be.

"Back to Nosgoth." Replied the man, who was looking at him with something akin to reverent awe.

Javier's shoulders slumped. This pair was even madder than he was. "Look, guys, it's late. It's been a long day and I'd really like to get some shut- eye. How 'bout if I fix you both up with a few autographed goodies?"

"That'd be nice," responded the woman, ascending the steps to stand before Javier, her presence palpably cold in the sultry night air.

"But what we really need you to do is save the world."  
  
  
Author's Notes  
  
Bizarre. I just looked up Javier Alvarez on the Net to see if there was one and apparently there is - a famous composer. How 'bout that? I just used the names 'cos you can rearrange them to make 'Raziel' . . . and er . . .javvare. Heh. OK, so it doesn't ALL make sense!  
Yeah, I know I said I was going to end the story but I can't do it. Gah! I'm addicted.


	2. Undeath

A cavernous hall that had witnessed a battle centuries in the offing stood in brooding silence, the combatants lying still and quiet in the cluttered vault that had become their tomb. Now and again, the stillness was broken by a spasmodic thudding as vampire flesh was set incessantly against unyielding bronze. A scuffling from the stairwell outside the metal portal signalled the arrival of additional forces, and shortly afterwards the door began to resound from a steadily strengthening assault as its numbers of attackers increased. Although the portal was jammed by the hulking form of a lifeless monstrosity, irresistible force was now meeting an immovable object, and the laws of physics dictated that something had to give. In this case, it was the door hinges, which were rent from their moorings under the impossible pressure imposed upon them by unrelenting vampiric strength, sending the freed barrier inwards to land at a forty-five degree angle atop the vanquished monster.

Hardly was the chamber breached than the first of the Vampire seekers scrambled over the top of the fallen portal to land catlike on the paved floor within. The creature's haunted gaze took in the scene and its tragic story in a single glance. The Vault Guardian lay dead, the remains of a black-hilted sword embedded in its skull. Leading away from the beast was a crimson trail of gore that terminated in the shadows at the back of the hall. His steps hesitant despite his desperate need to see the outcome of the fight for himself, the vampire followed the ruddy stream whose liquid was rapidly coagulating with the thick film of dust to form solid lumps on the stone floor. As he approached the burgundy puddle that had formed at the base of a stone sarcophagus, he paused, not yet ready to behold the sight he suspected was waiting for him.

Steeling himself with a rapid clenching of his claw-like fists, the vampire turned the corner. It was worse than he could possibly have imagined. There was blood everywhere. For a creature who survived solely on the consumption of human vitals, the vampire was uncharacteristically traumatized by the vision of this particular person in such a condition. That the woman was dead he did not doubt; for a start, the devastating wounds in stomach and shoulder all but precluded the possibility of survival, and furthermore it was evident from the sheer quantity of blood that covered both the floor and the mound of papers at her side that she was all but drained. The creature cursed himself for his stupid games. If he had but foregone his selfish wish wait for the opportunity to end the woman's human life in their mutual pleasure, and turned her when he had the chance, she would easily have survived the wounds inflicted by the Guardian.  
Riddled with self-reproach, the vampire knelt at the woman's side to make one final check. If she had already succumbed to death's edict, then she was beyond his help. Only a vampire of his sire's age and power could resurrect the dead - at his own stage of evolution it was necessary for a spark of life to still endure in the body. Fearing the worst, he reached out to touch her neck, pushing the tendon aside in order to put pressure upon the artery. The undead bowed his head and waited. Long moments passed. Just as he was about to give up hope, he felt it: elusive and barely detectable beneath the cooling skin, a pulse hovered. It was weak and extremely erratic, but nonetheless real. The vampire closed his eyes in thanks to whatever being might have preserved her for this long and with no further ado, he raised the woman's head from the ground, drew a razor- sharp fang across his own wrist and began the age-old ritual that led to the birth of a fledgling.

In the darkest room of the human subconscious, the woman awaited her death. The pain was beginning to recede by now, the physical agony that had wracked the corporeal form fading to a whisper as the all-pervading dark steeped every molecule with a Lethean chill. With each slowing heartbeat, the obscurity became more complete, awareness of the world fading as the senses detached themselves one by one from the material realm, the mind preparing for its descent into oblivion. As she hovered, teetering on the edge of the abyss, one of her senses refused to let her go. Bizarrely enough, it was the sense of taste that burst uninvited into the black pit of restfulness that enfolded her. As the warm, bitter liquid began to pour into her throat, it caused a physical convulsion, and with an almighty heave she was hauled back up into the harsh light of consciousness, drawing a huge gasping breath as her eyes opened once again on the land of the living - and the undead.

The first sight to meet her astonished gaze was that of a ivory-skinned, ebony-haired male to whom she felt an instant attraction. A moment later her memory surfaced, reminding her not only of the identity of the vampire who was looking at her with almost palpable relief, but also of the events directly preceding her apparent demise. As she opened her mouth to tell Isca of the revelation she had discovered in the Sarafan texts, Freya's body was wracked with a powerful spasm, choking off her initial greeting as some unknown force shook her visibly from within. Fearing that her revival was temporary, she turned her distraught gaze on the man beside her in a blatant request for help. The vampire gave an encouraging smile.

"Do not fear it," he advised as the paroxysms increased in frequency, adding more fuel to the woman's fears that something was horribly wrong.

"Easy for you to say," retorted Freya between sparsely drawn breaths, "You're not dying!"

"Neither are you. Trust me."

"Then what is this?" she entreated.

"The Pulse."

She looked at him uncomprehending. Isca gave an enigmatic smile, and shortly she understood. The dark force rushing in her veins was that of an alien entity enforcing its will, subjugating the human plasma and bending it to its own rhythm, causing irreversible changes in the host's physiology while at the same time infusing it with the strength it needed to survive.

The Pulse.

The thudding of the foreign heartbeat was growing ever louder and more violent, causing Freya to grope around for her companion's arm in anxiety. The vault seemed to be darkening. Isca caught hold of the floundering hand and gripped it as the woman's eyelids began to close again.

"Don't go." She murmured.

"I'll be here when you wake," he assured with a grin. And with that, Freya died.

Isca relaxed for the first time in long minutes. Having never sired offspring before this moment, he had not even been sure whether he was yet old or powerful enough to ensure the ritual's success. Evidently his fears were unfounded. Aware once again of his surroundings, the vampire called out to the group of Elite warriors who were hovering at a distance, not wishing to disturb the private interchange.

"Gather all this up - we will take the documents back with us."

Taking the woman's body in his arms, Isca rose to his feet and walked steadily towards the entrance, pausing only to afford Antaris' deformed bulk one last hateful look. He turned to the Elite nearest the door and gave an order in a voice that spoke of retribution denied.

"Bring me his head."

Isca departed Kain's treasure vault to the satisfying sound of a falling scimitar.

*

The ceiling was teeming with life.

Not just the kind that scuttled and spun either. Mites, parasites, mould, spores - the roof was a veritable smorgasbord of living entities, each one equally distinct and visible despite the distance and darkness of the lofty ceiling. Freya lay for a long while wondering why she had never noticed this phenomenon before. A shuffling noise now came to her ears, and she turned her head in the direction of the sound, a small smile breaking onto her face as she recognised the source. Her heart's desire was seated upon the base of a crumbled column not twenty feet distant, brushing the remnants of dried blood from some yellowed sheets of parchment. From the look of the cleaned pile on the floor before him, he had been there quite a while. Without alerting him to her wakefulness, she took a moment to let her eyes wander over his captivating form. The unruly night-black hair was today caught back from his face, giving a clear view of his lupine profile, and he had removed his shoulder guard, presumably to detach the cloak upon which she was even now resting. Her gaze travelled down over the curving outlines of his arms, the smooth skin belying the corded muscle beneath, to finally come to rest on the dark sheen of his leather trousers.

"Your eyes are burning holes in me, woman."

Freya smirked sheepishly. "If you knew I was awake, you could have said 'hello'." she countered.

Isca put down the page he was holding and crossed the room towards her, his expression reproving.

"If I had known you would take this long to come around, I would have gone hunting."

Frey sat up, alarmed. "How long was I out?" she asked, looking around to see if there was a quick exit. If he was hungry . . .

"About as long as every fledge," he replied, a broad grin breaking through his stern façade.

Freya looked at him uncomprehending. The slightest tilt of the vampire's arched eyebrows reminded her of the terrifying, pulse-pounding circumstances of their last conversation, and she opened her mouth to voice the obvious question. Just then, several thoughts tumbled one after another into her mind, delaying her speech; she was no longer human - so what would happen if she were sent back to Earth? Raziel was also from Earth, so what had happened to him when he shifted back? The Sarafan documents, contrary to her beliefs, did not hold the key to shifting; the thought of the Sarafan reminded her of the irony in that she should have served so long as their leader only to end up bound to the enemy by blood - but then the Vampires were no longer the enemy. Her jumbled thoughts were shortly superseded by another, more worrying truth.

She was going to have to feed.

She halted in her train of thought as she realised that Isca was regarding her with a knowing smile.

"Hungry?"

*

The moon was kind to Nosgoth's blasted landscape, lending it an aura of tranquillity and timeless beauty that would be stolen away when the harsh light of day prevailed. The pale glimmer of the moonlight drew elongated shadows from the feet of the two who strode in uneasy silence towards the walls of the last human city, the smaller of them caught between fraught anticipation and steadily growing need. The pair came to a stop at an opening in the upper floor of a deserted guardhouse that looked down onto the entrance to the human citadel. Below them, a vast body of water bisected a paved forecourt, along whose shores stalked a lone human, clad in the distinctive garb of the vampire hunter.

All thoughts of guilt at the impending betrayal of her own race vanished as Freya knelt at the edge of the window, the call of blood emanating from the creature below a siren song in her ears. Even from this distance, the heat of the human body was almost tangible

"Wait here while I dispatch him." Commanded the vampire.

Freya glared at him, a feral gleam in her eyes. "What for?"

Isca was annoyed at her apparent density. "So we can enter the city and find you some dinner."

"What's wrong with him?"

Despite his annoyance at Freya's evident mistake, he could not help but feel a tinge of pride as his first fledge evinced so ravenous an appetite with so fearless a mind.

"He is a vampire hunter. With a crossbow." The woman was evidently undeterred. ". . .Which fires wooden stakes." He added pointedly.

Seeing that he was not going to let this one go, she nodded compliantly. However, as Isca crouched into a ready position in order to pounce, he was knocked sideways by the force of Freya's lunge as she leaped from the building to land unerringly on the back of the vampire hunter below.

With a muttered curse, Isca followed suit, his own leap placing him on the floor but a moment after her, intending to intercede in what would surely otherwise amount to the premature death of his only fledgling. A resounding splash signalled that the guard's crossbow was no longer an issue, and it was shortly evident to the fretting vampire that his concerns were misplaced. The hunter was dispatched.

Disguising his relief in a show of remonstrance, Isca quickly reached down to haul the woman from her prey - the crossbow hitting the water had alerted the city guard. Seeing from her inwards-rolled eyes and gaping mouth that she was lost in the delirium of her first feed, the vampire threw her over his shoulder and ascended quickly into the guard tower, keeping up a good measure of speed until they reached a safe distance.

Freya had by now begun to demand to be set on her feet, and, after delaying a few minutes so she would see he was not instantly acceding to her every whim, he lowered her to the ground. The woman staggered back against the wall, senses still reeling from the heady rush of her first kill.

Isca was far from amused, his anger evidenced by the lowered brow and bared fangs. "If you pull one more stunt like that. . ."

Freya laughed openly at him. "Oh, don't be such an old stick-in-the-mud, it turned out alright, didn't it?"

"You were lucky," he growled, still trying to hide his pride.

"Lucky schmucky. He never knew what hit him," she boasted, still elated from the experience.

"I'm starting to wonder if this was such a good idea," he mused in a half- serious tone.

At his words, Freya's expression faded from wild exuberance into one of calm sincerity, and without hesitation, she approached the scowling vampire and showed him just how glad she was that he had brought her back.


	3. WorldHopping

As Nosgoth's stinted sunlight threw its last dying rays across the crumbling walls of the Razielim compound, Isca made his way up to the heavily shuttered chamber that Freya had appropriated as her quarters, his expression naming him as the bearer of sad tidings. Since their return to Nosgoth's devastated future lands, and Raziel's consequent departure to Earth, the woman had dedicated herself to a full evaluation of the documents for which she had paid so high a price. In order for Nosgoth to be restored, a means must be found to bring Raziel back, and Freya was still fervently hoping that the aging parchments she was now translating might divulge that very secret.  
As the door creaked open, Freya lowered the Sarafan book she had been examining and leaped to her feet, the echo of a half-buried hope twisting her brows. Isca stalked hesitantly towards her, two gleaming objects clanking together in his extended claw.

"It is beyond our skill." He advised her with some regret.

Freya took the two halves of the katana from him without a word, her face shadowed with loss.  
Breaking the mournful silence, he indicated the texts, asking: "Have you found out anything useful?"

Freya replied in the negative. "Raziel didn't know how he got here either."

Isca leaned contemplatively against the wall near a shuttered window. "What about you?"

Freya considered this for a moment, recalling each of her shifting experiences. "Each time I came here, this katana was involved. It came through with me the first time, and I was holding it the second and third - although I've no idea what the correlation might be."

"Is there no-one in this time we might ask?"

Freya shook her head. "The Lieutenants are all destroyed, I doubt the humans would be much use to us, and Kain is off somewhere in the time- stream . . ." Freya paused, an idea germinating as she thought of Kain's own early adventures. "The Oracle. . .although he must be long dead by now."

"Then we will go back to when he is not." offered Isca.

A quick trip through the warp gate in the cellars of the Razielim stronghold brought the two to the vicinity of the time-streaming device, only to realise that neither of them had any idea how to activate it. Several hours and various failed experiments later, they hit upon the secret, which soon set the room alight with a pulsating glow before catapulting the adventurers back to the requested time.

Freya was hard-pressed to decide whether the Oracle was helpful or not. True, the old man had been only too willing to talk when Isca had imposed his considerable influence, but the ancient sage seemed to know nothing but half-truths, riddles and hints of mysterious omens. Freya sighed - the information was not what she had hoped for, and Isca was starting to lose his patience with the nervously prattling ancient. However, as she rose in resignation to leave her sire to indulge his whims, the Oracle's panicked voice cut across her reverie.

"I can do what you wish, P'ramma. I can send you to Earth!"

Isca's powers of persuasion were evidently having some effect at last, and Freya was more than intrigued by the fact that he should call her by her former Sarafan title. 

"You will help us? What do you want in return?"  
The Oracle shot a glance at the bared fangs that were hovering inches from his throat. "J- just your guarantee that you will not harm an old hermit," he replied, a pleading look on his face.

Isca released the man reluctantly, urging him to tell them quickly how the shift might be achieved. The Oracle was only to happy to comply.

"There are various nexus points across the length and breadth of Nosgoth and Earth where the two worlds draw close to one another on the ethereal plane. Occasionally these points can be breached." 

Freya nodded - she already knew the location of a few: There was one in Uschtenheim, another above the Abyss, one in the cave system where she had met the Blood Demon what seemed like a lifetime ago, and apparently, one in the Razielim Hall.

As though reading her thoughts, the Oracle added, "There is also one here."

"How do we return?" asked Isca, a note of concern tingeing his voice. He had no desire to be marooned on another world, in spite of Nosgoth's current condition.

"Return to the nexus point when you have found Raziel - this charm will open a rift." He added, handing over a small vial. "Now, prepare yourselves."

Freya halted the Oracle before he could proceed with the ritual, her eyes seeking Isca's before pulling him to one side, entreaty marking her attitude.

"Isca, we're going to my world, and there will be times when I will ask you to do things you won't like. I need your assurance that you will do as I say."

Isca's displeasure at her demand was all too clear. "You presume much, 'fledge'. Do not forget who sired whom."

Freya continued undeterred. "This is important, Isca - the rules are different there."

"The rules of combat?"

"The rules of survival. If you do something to make the humans there uneasy, they will not hesitate in calling in the authorities."

"So?"

His nonchalant attitude sparked nightmare visions of the media circus that would inevitably surround the finding of a real live - or rather, undead - vampire on Earth.

"So it's better if we just keep a low profile. Which means no killing," she admonished, waggling her finger as an extra warning.

Isca stuck out his bottom lip in an overt show of petulance.

"Time waits for no man," advised the Oracle with a pointed stare, interrupting the discussion. "You have a destination in mind?"

Freya nodded, and, after she had explained to the Nosgoth-born seer where they wanted to go, the wizened one raised his hands to open the gateway, and the two passed out of the twisted beauty of the Vampire Planet the grime and heat of Earth, the Oracle smiling at their departure.

*

The location in which Isca and Freya now found themselves -an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront- was perfect, and, unlike the majority of the situations in which Freya had found herself immediately after shifting, completely deserted. The woman soon devised a plan which involved the procuring of a pair of long coats to hide their outlandish clothes, the location of a dark hideaway where she could rest undisturbed through the daylight hours, and the discovery of Raziel's whereabouts by means of the Internet. The first two parts of the plan completed successfully, Freya soon found a late-night Web Café from whose windows light was still spilling onto Newport's main street.

The woman indicated their destination to her companion, only to stop in her tracks a moment later with a muttered curse. "We're going to need money."

Isca raised his brows questioningly.

"Currency - to give to the owner in exchange for information." She explained.

"I could charm him," offered the vampire.

Freya gave a humoured chuckle. "I really don't think diplomacy is one of your strong points."

The vampire frowned in annoyance. "Not charm; 'Charm' - the Dark Gift."

"You have that ability?" she asked in surprise.

"Possibly." Seeing her confusion, he added, "When Raziel reaved Turel's soul, he acquired all the vampiric gifts that the bastard had stolen for himself," He paused as Freya stepped closer to him, the memory of Turel's use of his Mutate ability on her vampire friend still horribly vivid. Isca slipped an arm about her shoulders before continuing.

"The Gifts, like all the metamorphic features, are beginning to filter down the bloodline."

Freya shrugged. "Can't hurt to try."

As the pair stepped inside the internet café, the rapid clicking of mice and clacking of keys silenced as Isca's presence made the room seem somehow smaller and a great deal darker. Several people got up and left. The clerk approached from the desk at the back of the room.

"Help you?"

Freya glanced to her left where she perceived that Isca had his claws to his temples, eyes closed in fierce concentration. Sure enough, the clerk's eyes shortly glazed over, the pupils becoming misty and the gaze vacuous. Abruptly, the man turned on his heel, marched straight toward the back of the room and deactivated the light-switch.

Isca broke contact. "I think I need to work on this."

The woman sat down at a nearby terminal, grinning sardonically. A half- hour later, Freya had found the information they sought and she rose to exit the café, passing the good news to her companion as she did so.

"According to this schedule, Raziel's human counterpart will be making an appearance at a Press Conference in three days' time." She informed him, eyes glued to the printout. She stopped short as she found Isca's looming frame blocking the doorway.

"Three days?"

Freya nodded.

"I am to remain on this human-infested planet for three days - with no food?"

Freya poked him in the side with a sarcastic - if appreciative - smile. "I don't think you're going to waste away to nothing in that short a time."

The vampire remained where he was, an unmoving incarnation of menace in the eerie glow of the computer screens. "Quite correct. However, the Thirst may well send me into a killing frenzy before then."

The woman was appalled at the news, even more so because she knew it would affect her too. The moment of tension was broken as a malicious chuckle cut across the silence.

"Fooled you."

The relief Freya felt at his words was tinged by the worrying thought that she still had no idea when her sire was joking. With an annoyed mutter, she pushed past him, seeking the relatively familiar and predictable atmosphere of the outside world. Three days until the Conference, she mused, and all she had to do was keep her companion out of trouble until then. They would be the longest three days of Freya's life.

*

Javier was freaking out. He had never known such dogged pursuit before, and to make matters worse, he had rarely come across a fan who had refused to be placated by the offer of freebies. The woman's latest comment was what worried him most, however, as she seemed to be under the impression that he was 'Nosgoth's saviour'. More than ever before, he regretted his impulsive actions at that long-ago Conference - it had obviously led some of the more deluded lunatics to involve him in their own idiotic fantasies. He began to back away towards his door.

"Well, OK then." He dissembled nervously, "But how about if we talk about this in the morning? I really need to get my head down for a few hours if I'm going to save the planet."

"We've delayed long enough." replied the woman, her companion ascending the steps to stand beside her and adding his concurrence with a heartfelt rumble. "Besides, it's fairly clear you don't believe us."

Javier shrugged and gave a wry smile. "Would you believe you?"

The man now stepped closer to Javier, an unreadable expression on the hollowed curves of his death-pale countenance. "We faced Turel together."

Javier tilted his head, intrigued at last. Turel had not yet been dealt with in the released game.  
Seeing that the phrase had some effect, Isca continued, "He had plans to possess Kain as a child, and rule Nosgoth through him. He almost killed the both of us," he added, indicating the woman at his side, "But you defeated him - with her sword."

Javier was staring at him open-mouthed. How could this man know the intricate details of the acid-induced dream that had so influenced the recent years of his life? None of these ideas had even made their way into the scripts yet, so that precluded the possibility that these people had read them on the 'Net. Eyeing the pair closely one final time, he nodded assent.

"Alright. Ten minutes. But either one of you pulls anything funny . . ." He took another glance at the towering figure before him and decided it would be prudent not to finish the threat. Turning once more to his front door, he approached it with a sense of renewed purpose - it would not defeat him in his newly sobered and enlightened state. With a thinly- disguised sneer of impending victory, Javier located the lock at the first attempt and promptly snapped the key.

"Mierda."

*

Two hours and several cups of coffee later, Javier sat with his head in his hands in a massive armchair, his brain whirling and thumping alternately. He was torn between the desire to believe the uncannily convincing story the two had related in the past few hours, and the months of aversion therapy that even now had a powerful hold on his psyche. The woman, Freya, had gone so far as to stick her finger in his fish tank to demonstrate the effects of water on fledgling skin, and had pulled out the remains of a demon-hilted sword to serve as evidence of her companion's story. The man, Isca, by dint of his very stature and temperament, was almost proof enough in himself of the existence of the undead. It was to the presence of the latter that Raziel finally contributed his reawakening. His memories of Nosgoth, suppressed by psychotherapy and yet still an ever-present force, were even now beginning to assert themselves anew in all their nightmarish glory. As he viewed the man's golden eyes and glimpsed the formal Clan regalia that he wore beneath his trenchcoat, Raziel was reminded to the point of final and utter conviction of his ever-present fledge Isca, at whose side he had indeed fought in the last days of his incarceration in the form of the Soul Reaver.

"!Hijo de puta!" He spat, rising to his feet. All those months of psychiatry and he had been telling the truth! Freya glanced up expectantly from where she sat nursing her burnt finger to see that they had at last been successful. He believed.

The youth paused in his pacing, a look of fierce purpose in his eyes. "So how do I get back?"

"We can take you there," replied Freya. She glanced behind her to locate Isca, who was currently growling at an oversized promotional poster of Kain. The vampire returned to the conversation as he saw the two were ready to depart, a sombre, puzzled look furrowing his brows.

"Only one question remains," he began, glancing from Freya to Raziel in turn. "Why are you not a vampire?"

*

Author's Notes  
  
* Ooh! New reviewers! *blinks* Where'd you lot come from? *grins* Nice to see you - do call again.

* Deionarra: You're back! Where you been, girl???


	4. Return to Nosgoth

The shrieking wail of sirens cut through the thick, humid air, adding more torment to senses that were already overloaded with the unfamiliar effects of smog and neon. In the distance, a woman screamed and a gunshot sounded with a harsh, staccato crack while uber-happy skate-punk music blared in defiance of its surroundings from the rickety doors of a nearby club. Three shadowy forms now wound their way along the smoky backstreets of Newport's docklands in the direction of the old waterfront warehouse, hoping that the ramshackle old building held the means to allow them egress from this noisome society, and return them to the more normal order of vampiric existence.  
  
In the course of their journey, Freya had remained at the rear while Isca and Raziel advanced before her, the vampire's statuesque form dwarfing that of the young computer programmer at his side. As they walked along, Freya reflected on the speed at which the Vampire Lord's true personality had begun to assert itself over that of Javier. She observed him engage in conversation with his second-in-command, a floppy-haired youth in jeans and a T-shirt, and the set of his shoulders, coupled with the look of burning intensity in his eyes reminded her of the battles she had fought against his alter ego for the right to hold land in the oppressive days of Kain's Vampiric Empire. Freya grinned to herself as she envisioned those confrontations in a different light: in her mind's eye, a young computer hack with greasy hair and a punky T-shirt waged a vicious war against the daughter of an oil tycoon and a feminist evangelist. The woman choked down a giggle.  
  
As their steps brought them at last into the less populated district along the waterfront, Raziel asked his companions about the secret of shifting between worlds and how they had discovered it.  
  
"We asked the Oracle, and he was able to send us through." Replied Freya cheerily, detaching her attention with some regret from Isca's form, still loping ahead of them.  
  
At her words, Raziel stopped dead, his gaze fixed in front of him.  
  
You did what?" The tone of his voice, though barely above a whisper, was cold enough to strike terror into the fledgling's soul.  
  
Freya glanced at Isca in alarm, the smile draining from her lips. "We asked the Oracle . . ." she repeated quietly, confused by his anger.  
  
"You do know who the Oracle was?" asked Raziel, turning his dark eyes on her with uncharacteristic malice. "You don't, do you? !Idiota!"  
  
Even whilst being berated, Freya found herself wondering at the change that had come over Javier in the past few hours. Although still aware of his human identity, it seemed that his twenty-odd years of mortal life could not help but be superseded by his millennia of undeath; and although Javier's personality still seeped through on occasion (especially when roused or cursing), Raziel was evidently rising to dominance.  
  
"Who was he?" put in Isca, breaking through the tense atmosphere that had arisen between his Lord and his fledge.  
  
Raziel turned his baleful glare on his second-in-command, a look of utter disgust twisting his lips. "Moebius."  
  
Isca's shock carried through into the appalled look he gave Freya. "Why would the Time-Streamer aid us?"  
  
Raziel clenched his jaw. "He wouldn't. How did he tell you you would return?"  
  
"He gave us a vial," replied Isca, removing the object from Freya's numb grasp. Raziel snatched it from him without a word and raised the opened bottle to his nose.  
  
"Well?" asked Isca.  
  
"Wine." Replied the one-time Vampire Lord, hurling he bottle from him so it shattered noisily against the concrete floor. He rounded on Freya, the ire of a centuries-old killer barely contained in the wiry form of the Hispanic youth.  
  
"You realise you may have trapped all three of us here for good?"  
  
Freya nodded miserably, eyes glued to the floor. As Raziel strode off alone in the direction of the warehouse, she sought Isca's side, hoping to derive some meagre comfort from his touch. To her horror, she found her one-time fighting partner was looking at her not with anger, nor reproach, but with an expression that spoke eloquently of his complete and utter disappointment in his fledgling. It was almost more than she could bear. Freya sat down dejectedly on a nearby bench, allowing the other two to put some distance between her and them before she followed. Not that it mattered now - none of them was going anywhere. She gathered her coat around her in a gesture that usually belied cold, but in this case spoke only of the young vampire's disconsolation. Even as she did so, Freya felt something that made her eyes dart upwards with sudden revelation as she felt the clank of the remains of her katana inside the roomy confines of her leather trenchcoat.  
  
A heaven-born idea was beginning to take root in her mind, a conglomeration of the apparently 'useless' information Moebius had given them, together with her own suspicions about the weapon. If, as Moebius had inferred, there were points on both planets where space converged, then two questions presented themselves: Why were the points not open all the time, and why did they not always transport the traveller to the same place? It occurred to her that it was possible that the points on either world moved like a combination lock - one that could be opened at any point, but only when two nexus points on either world were aligned. This might be the answer to the second part of the question, but there was still more to the conundrum, ranging back to the original question as to why the breaches were not open all the time. Freya's eyes strayed to the shards of the katana, and, face lit by a growing expression of hope, she leaped to her feet and took off in pursuit of the others.  
  
She caught up with them at the warehouse to find they had just arrived at the nexus point, which the two vampires had previously seen fit to mark with a large 'X'.  
  
"Subtle." remarked Raziel sarcastically.  
  
"I may have an idea." began the fledgling breathlessly as she careened to a halt next to them.  
  
"Does it involve allowing our enemies to give us one-way tickets to other planets?"  
  
Shrugging off the acerbic query, Freya began to outline her theory. As she finished, Raziel asked, "So how do we open the nexus point?"  
  
"I think all we need to do is use the katana - I believe it's an Oopart." At the puzzled stares she was afforded by both vampire and human, Freya elucidated, "An out-of-place artefact. I believe its presence in the right place causes a breach to open in the fabric of space/time between Earth and Nosgoth. It may even be from Nosgoth - I don't know."  
  
"You watch too much 'Star Trek'," opined the Javier part of Raziel, although it was clear from his eyes that he was intrigued and hopeful.  
  
Hardly daring to breathe, Freya placed the halves of the katana gingerly in the centre of the nexus point and stood back, watching for signs of a fissure or the unmistakeable shimmering effect that accompanied shifting. Nothing happened for several long, fraught moments. Eventually, Raziel let out his breath with a hiss of vexation. Freya tried to think quickly, more to assuage the former Vampire Lord's wrath than to speed their departure from Earth. However, his voice interrupted her musings unexpectedly with a helpful suggestion:  
  
"Maybe there's a trigger. What were you doing when you shifted?"  
  
The woman considered the circumstances of her two trips. "The first time I was looking for burglars, and the second I was in the middle of a visit from the bailiffs, repossessing my stuff - and trying to con me out of that sword, as it happens."  
  
"Both threatening situations," remarked Raziel. "Maybe the arm activates in response to its owner's peril?"  
  
Isca, who had remained out of the baffling conversation for the most part, now stalked off towards the warehouse entrance. "Time and space, no idea. Peril? That I can help with."  
  
Raziel and Freya had just enough time to exchange bemused glances before Isca came pelting back in, followed by a small group of unsavoury-looking characters, most of whom were armed, albeit crudely. Not even wanting to know what her sire had done to get them to chase him, Freya mentally willed whatever force it was that might control the item's shifting ability to work, and much to her delight and immense relief, the heat-wave effect began to manifest itself above the remains of the Dark Angel.  
  
As the three began to shift, Isca kept a close eye on Raziel. It occurred to him that his Lord's true form might not be restored when they arrived back on Nosgoth, and the vampire was not at all sure what to do should this particular situation ensue. In any event, it was too late to worry about such matters now, and he watched with malicious amusement as the gang members' faces froze in disbelief while their proposed victims vanished into thin air.  
  
*  
  
The nexus portals of Nosgoth were ripped apart once again as three travellers attempted to gain ingress to its hallowed grounds. The first two were welcomed: being of vampiric nature, they evidently belonged. The third caused a minor headache for the creators and maintainers of the portals. The being was recognised at a genetic level as the Vampiric Messiah Raziel, however, it seemed that the creature was attempting to pass through the nexus point into Nosgoth in the form of a young human male. The recent catastrophic alterations in the course of the Vampire Planet's history meant that the time-stream was still struggling to rectify itself and forge a new course through the annals of the ages. Nosgoth's very existence was balancing on the edge of a coin: the addition of one more major anomaly to its fragile equilibrium would likely tip the balance.  
  
In the barest fraction of a second, the decision was taken.  
  
*  
  
Isca and Freya quickly took stock of their new surroundings: the odious slime dripping from every lichen-covered rock, accompanied by the foul stench of rotting vegetation emanating from every stagnant pool led to the inevitable identification of the Termagant swamp. Another glance at their environs showed that they were alone. They barely had time to take in a couple of horrified breaths before Raziel came hurtling back through the nexus point in the uncompromising throes of a millennium of metamorphosis and vampiric evolution, to land in an undignified heap in a nearby puddle. The pair dashed to his side, Isca quickly pulling the still-changing form from the cold embrace of the swamp and moving him to a drier spot on higher ground. A few minutes' evaluation of the speed of his evolution assured the two that their Lord would remain in his unconscious state for a few hours more. As yet unsure of the time-period in which they might have landed, the party made its way to a rocky outcrop, relatively free from the stench of the putrid mire below, and sat down to rest until Raziel's recovery should be complete.  
  
Before long, Freya had a small fire burning, and, after covering the Vampire Lord's dormant form with her trenchcoat (much to Isca's amusement - it was not as though vampires could suffer from lack of heat), she took her seat at her companion's side.  
  
"I don't understand it, Isca: why did he end up on Earth in his natural state while I stayed Vampire? And why has he returned to his latest form now?"  
  
The vampire shook his head with a shrug, unwilling to even enter into conjecture on a topic that baffled him so completely. Instead he changed the subject abruptly to a question that had been preying on his mind for the last four days.  
  
"Were you tempted to stay?"  
  
Freya glanced in surprise at the fearsome warrior in whose one-armed embrace she was currently resting, reading his naked expression and interpreting from it the need for a reassuring reply.  
  
"Only if you did," she answered, holding his gaze with a lopsided grin.  
  
"Sentimental fool." he chided.  
  
"Ooh, you . . .!" Freya stopped as she found she couldn't think of a suitable insult for the situation. So instead, she thumped him in the leg, turned her back on him, and stuck her nose in the air, arms folded pointedly across her chest.  
  
"The silent treatment?" Freya's only response was to raise her nose higher, face still turned away from the teasing vampire. "You know I like a challenge."  
  
Fully aware of the truth of his last statement, Freya turned back towards her lover, her look of mischievous glee equalling his own.  
  
"Why do you think I provoke you?"  
  
*  
  
Author's Notes/Review Responses:  
  
I think this is the longest I've left any of these stories without updating. I've got good excuses, though - not only have I spent half the last week learning how to patch up broken people and bring them back from the brink of death (aka bandaging and CPR), but I also had (dan dan daaaaaaan) no idea where the story was going. S'OK, fret not, I've figured it out now. Anyway, my bloke's off out tonight with his work mates (I feel a "dealing with Javier's beer-speak" incident coming on), so I might be able to get another chapter up tonight - I've got most of it written anyway.  
  
I didn't make up the 'Ooparts' term, by the way. I read it in a bizarre and highly biased little book that contained hundreds of examples of these out-of-place artefacts throughout history - gold necklaces found in millennia-old geodes and the like. Quite a fun read, but the author was a certifiable whacko.  
  
Oh yeah, and I could really have done with Vladimir's Angel's 'Dictionary of Technobabble' when writing this chapter. Serves me right for digging myself into such a hole. : (  
  
*  
  
Deionarra: Thanks for your last review of 'Return to Nosgoth'. Further to your declaration of affiliation, I would like to announce that I will be raising an army in preparation for an invasion of Nosgoth in the near future. *whips out paper and pencil and starts designing uniforms, all skin- tight black leather with revealing necklines*  
  
You can sign up here *waggles recruitment form*  
  
Bet you're sorry you volunteered now, aren't ya? : )  
  
*  
  
Many thanks to Syvia for pointing out my stooooopid mistake with The Oracle / Moebius. It has led to a rather interesting plot development, however, so thanks again. *wanders off with nose buried in Blood Omen script, filled with revelations*  
  
MikotoTribal: I hadn't played past the bat-form in Blood Omen either, which was why I made the above mistake. I can send you a copy of the script if you like, although you'll probably have to fight Kain for it. How are the house guests, by the way? ; )  
  
*  
  
SpitefulHope: Evil? Me? Never. Wait 'til you see what I've got planned for the rest of the story and THEN decide if I'm evil. 0 :-) 


	5. Fledgling

Dusk settled like a diaphanous grey mourning veil over the tufted hillocks and tepid waters of the Termagant swamp. The malodorous air, a bane on the lungs of the breather, resounded with the incessant calls of all manner of slithering, crawling bog-dwellers. Although visibility was reduced with the onset of the evening mist, the swirling vapours were kinder on the eye than the true unsightliness of the primordial mire. It was through this nebulous haze that the three travellers passed, the slight form of a female deceptively diminutive between the twin forms of the Dark Gods that flanked her. One of the males shortly detached himself from the group, himself distinguishable from his cohorts by the sable, feathered vanes that spouted from his back, and laid his hand upon the door that marked the entrance to an ancient and singular device.  
  
As the three circled the mechanical offspring of Moebius' labours, Raziel, restored once more to the form with which Janos had persuaded him to play out his role, confirmed his plans with his companions.  
  
"There is much yet to be done in Nosgoth's irredeemable past before our 'present' can be brought to its salvation. Before this mission can begin, however, we must return to our ruinous future to plan, prepare and muster our remaining forces."  
  
When he had obtained a nodded agreement from both Isca and Freya, Raziel activated the Time-Streaming device, setting the controls for the very moment that the pair had departed the future in search of him. As the dust began to settle once again into the depressions the footprints of the three had left, a swish of purple robes heralded the belated arrival of a most displeased Oracle.  
  
*  
  
As the days wore on, Freya began to suspect that there was something amiss within the Clan Razielim (such as it was). Isca and Raziel seemed at times to be locked in secretive conversation which would stop short whenever she approached. Freya also noted that she had been excluded from planning meetings on several occasions, only finding out about them when a throwaway comment came to her ears. On the other hand, the rest of the preparations were going well. One of the Elite who had some skill in metalworking had forged new armour for Raziel. In addition to new bronze greaves, he had created a pair of cleverly-wrought, plated shoulder guards, which sat close to the skin at both front and back without running the risk of interfering with the action of the wings. Swords, shields and other weapons of hacking and maiming were being repaired and restored, and it was not long before a veritable armoury was established in the Clan forge.  
  
Freya was of the opinion that she would now, as in the past, be able to offer insight and help if she had an inkling of the vampires' plans, but whenever the opportunity arose to engage either Isca or Raziel in conversation about her proposition, there would be urgent matters demanding attention. The woman, in an attempt to stave off paranoia, was trying hard to convince herself that they were not Whispering to one another in her company. However, unless the Dark Lord and her own mate had recently become bedfellows (and she was reasonably sure of the ridiculousness of that option), there was no other rational explanation for the loaded glances that were constantly passing between them in her presence.  
  
On the third day after their return to the Razielim Clanlands, Freya reached the end of her tether. Returning from an evening's hunting in the Human City, she found the entire Clan gathered around a map of Nosgoth in one of the still-standing chambers, which had recently been designated as conference room. Heartily vexed by her continued exclusion, she marched straight in and demanded to be told what was going on.  
  
Raziel let out a deep sigh that proved how slim was his grasp on his temper and replied, keeping his attention focused on the map.  
  
"This does not concern you, fledgling."  
  
Freya's indignation, fuelled by the elation of a recent feed, erased common sense, and incited her to loose a torrent of criticism against the glowing- eyed Lord to inform him just how wrong he was: Fledgling she might be, but he seemed to be forgetting that she had -on occasion successfully - led the Sarafan armies against him, and just because one of his progeny had seen fit to indoctrinate her into their ways (here she cast a placatory glance at Isca to show she harboured him no ill-will), did not mean that she intended to start at the bottom of the ladder again.  
  
Raziel growled in an aside to his second-in-command, "If you will not keep your fledgling under control. . ."  
  
"Why am I being excluded from this discussion?" interjected the woman.  
  
Raziel finally raised his burning gaze to hers and opened his mouth to speak. Before his answer was uttered, however, his eyes darted across to Isca, and a moment later he sighed as though in acceptance of some new advice.  
  
"We need you to focus on the translation of the Sarafan texts." He cut across her consequent argument, adding, "We will be travelling to a time that not even I remember. Any information you can glean from those documents about that particular time will be invaluable."  
  
"But," began the woman, determined to find out the rest of the plan.  
  
"Invaluable." Raziel stressed with an air of finality, eyeing her coldly. His displeasure, although not as injuring to her as Isca's, still scathed her. He was her sire's sire and though every human instinct that was left in her screamed that she did not owe any loyalty to this being, some newly impressed impulse that had nothing to do with conscious thought and decision-making was convincing her that the best thing she could do would be to walk back to her chamber and start deciphering the texts. With one final incensed glare at Isca, she stamped off in the direction of her room, leaving the men to their discussion.  
  
The night ticked its finite minutes away in silence as Freya, feeling left out and dejected, continued in her persevering quest to wrest information from the long-winded Sarafan documents. Just as her fledgling body-clock told her that the sun would shortly be on the rise, the door to the chamber opened with a muffled creak. Her senses told her the identity of her visitor without the need for visual confirmation, and, still piqued from the humiliating events of the evening, she ignored him, keeping her attention centred on the riveting contents of the Sarafan tome. When his immediate proximity ensured that she could no longer realistically claim to be unaware of his presence, she spoke brusquely without looking up from her reading.  
  
"I'm busy."  
  
A clawed hand reached out and closed the book. Freya's shoulders slumped as, with a resigned sigh, she turned to regard her sire. The look on his face was unfathomable. It lay somewhere in the murky divide between desire and regret, guilt and need. Despite her disgruntlement over recent happenings, she found her desire for him as strong as ever, and she rose willingly to embrace him. As dawn wore on into morning, her lover's affections became urgent, needy, almost fatalistic, and when she awoke at evenfall, he was gone, as in fact were the rest of the Clan.  
  
*  
  
Freya arose to find the vast confines of the Razielim fortress completely deserted. The newly repaired armour, the recently scavenged weapons - everything had been taken. As she strode, first in steadily rising alarm then later in a mood of mounting fury from room to room, she found that the devious swine had left her with nothing.  
  
The walls echoed briefly with the infuriated scream of a deserted fledge.  
  
As the reverberation subsided, a new sound came to Freya's keen ears: a shuffling, clanking noise followed by the steady patter that signalled the approach of several bipedal creatures - her vampire-enhanced senses informing her that they were barefoot. Scaling a nearby wall that was half tumbling into ruin, Freya espied the source of the sound. An advance scouting party of some pale-skinned, blue-garbed monstrosities had breached the main gate and was now making its way towards her position. With the main exit inaccessible, Freya lunged back into the main hall, metres in front of the scuttling bipeds and made a dash for the door that led to the warp gate. The appearance of two of the leading creatures' more ferocious pets forced her to pick up a nearby scimitar, evidently discarded for its notched blade. The injuries she sustained in dispatching the beasts would undoubtedly have ended her human life, but were fortunately of little consequence to her new vampiric constitution. Freya now began to back towards the rear of the dais, keeping close to the symbol-decked portal. Then, as more of the pallid, leprous creatures began to pour into the Hall, and seeing that the odds were more than slightly stacked against her, Freya decided that -for today- cowardice was the better part of survival, and flung herself through the door.  
  
Without full recognition of her reasons, the fledgling found herself heading for the Chronoplast. Working on the assumption that Raziel and Isca had gone back in time to try to save the Pillars as per the Vampire Messiah's original plan, but having absolutely no idea when, she decided, with a combination of bitterness and reckless rage ruling her thoughts, to set the dials at random. There was no point in staying in this future alone where these deadly, misshapen beasts roamed free, and even less in trying to calculate to which time-period her sire might have gone; with that depressing truth foremost in her mind, Freya activated the machine.  
  
*  
  
A few nights' exploration of her new, well-populated surroundings brought the fledgling unerringly to the familiar environs of Meridian, which, thanks to some eldritch barriers across the main gates, she was forced to enter through the sewers. Finding that much of the town was unchanged from the days when she had walked its cluttered streets, but that the same mysterious energy barriers that had prevented her entry into the main city had left large areas of the town inaccessible, Freya confined herself to the sewers. The self-imposed burden was light, however, as she soon found Meridian's underground tunnels to be as overrun with mercenary scum as the perilous streets above, and consequently the fledge did not go hungry.  
  
Despite the abundance of well-fed prey, Freya found herself growing uneasy. As time wore on, she began to realise that her disaffection stemmed from her inability to deal with the unfamiliar power, the alien feelings and the unexpected lusts that were threatening to overwhelm her newborn fledgling system. With no-one to whom to turn for advice, her own vampiric instincts began to turn on her, sending the woman into the inevitable spiral that could culminate in nothing other than a masochistic killing spree. The only peace she now felt came from the kill, from the indescribable ecstasy of a victim's lifeblood splattering against her cold skin: but the 'peace' brought its own consequences, and when she became aware that the satiety conveyed by the violence marked her only relief from the burning of Isca's betrayal, the woman found she could not stop. Nor did she want to, and days passed in a blinding succession of tormented screams and streams of blood as she continued to cut a wanton trail of destruction through Meridian's underground.  
  
Her vampiric senses soared with each kill - more so because of her location. She loved the irony: she had once protected this very city, and in a moment of idle curiosity she had even wandered past the Sarafan keep where Antaris would try to kill her - in who knew how many hundreds of years' time - and fail. She also realised that her current actions were probably affecting the timeline, but her sense of judgement was impaired in proportion to her growing bloodthirst, and she no longer cared.  
  
As the fledge wandered recklessly along one of the more widely-used tunnels, she encountered a lone Sarafan, his silver armour gleaming dull orange in the meagre sewer light. After a brief skirmish, during which she lured the youth into a false sense of security by feigning weakness, the woman caught the knight around the back of the neck and in a moment of unparalleled perversity, kissed him full on the lips as she drove her blade through his chest. With a shudder of pleasure, she licked the blood from the well-used scimitar and turned to continue, eyes still fixed in raw delight on the fallen Sarafan. Abruptly, she found her progress impeded as though by a solid wall of bone and muscle as she walked straight into someone's chest.  
  
Freya backed off a couple of paces in complete surprise - she had not sensed the presence of any other humans in this part of the sewer. Her stomach tightened into knots and her mouth dropped open as she recognised the immortal who confronted her. She viewed her new challenger from head to toe - the rainment and armature of jet black leather, the ash-white skin, the powerful chest - still bearing the scar it had sustained in that fabled battle - and last but probably most significantly, the silvered hair - all left her in no doubt as to the identity of this blood-drinking leech. The cat-yellow eyes and ever-present scowl only served to reinforce her suspicions. Freya took another involuntary step back as the vampire's previously sequestered presence burst full-force onto her fledgling senses.  
  
"Kain!"  
  
*  
  
Review Responses:  
  
Arch Enemy/Ebony - Eek! Sorry! I could send you the antidote, but I think I've fallen victim to my mean streak today . . . : )  
  
MikotoTribal: Don't worry about it, it's just profanity (of which there is plenty in Spain - at least there was when I lived there.) : P 


	6. Confrontations

The future master of the vampire race accorded the young fledge a narrow- eyed, calculating look.  
  
"Do I know you?"  
  
Freya hastily shook her head, words deserting her. Though it was true that she had spoken to the future incarnation of Kain on one occasion, he had been about to run her through with the Soul Reaver, and she was in no hurry to reveal that to this younger version - especially since he was currently holding the self-same weapon.  
  
"But you obviously know me." He continued, circling her slowly, his voice low and his enunciation impeccably precise as always.  
  
"Only by reputation." breathed the fledgling, finding herself for the first time since her time-streaming had brought her into the past in some fear for her unlife. Kain stopped at the warm, discarded body of the Sarafan guard, a connection quickly forming in his brain.  
  
"So it is your path of destruction I have been crossing these past few days."  
  
Freya maintained her distance and remained silent while Kain regarded the still-bleeding corpse disdainfully and shook his head, clucking his tongue.  
  
"Did your sire never teach you to drain your prey?"  
  
At the mention of her maker, Freya's previously subdued anger erupted once again.  
  
"No." she snarled vehemently through gritted teeth, her hands clenched and her entire frame taut as a wire.  
  
Although aware of the fledgling's tension at his question, Kain ignored it for now, focusing his attention on the knight's body.  
  
"Such waste."  
  
Freya's rage was momentarily forgotten once more while she witnessed a torrent of blood tear its way free of the man's body, twisting and undulating in glistering, gravity-defying scarlet ribbons as it made its way to the gullet of the waiting fiend. As far as she knew, Kain was the only immortal to feed in this manner. As she watched the future subjugator of the Vampire race indulge his Thirst, Freya's fledgling senses became increasingly and uncomfortably aware of his presence. It was as though she stood in overly close proximity to some mesmerising power source, the aura of almost arrogant confidence that surrounded the chalk-skinned vampire pulsating with hedonistic vigour. Even Raziel, when Freya had encountered him at the full height of his vampiric evolution, had never exuded such raw, sadistic potency. It seemed to the fledgling's beguiled mind that the creature sating its needs from the prone form of the Sarafan knight embodied the epitome of immorality, and despite that observation, the allure of the power and knowledge that resided in him was undeniable.  
  
Kain smiled to himself. Nothing escaped his attention.  
  
As the immortal had followed the young vampire's trail across Meridian's underground, he had been surprised at the wanton destruction that the creature had wrought, and now that he had seen her, and witnessed her reaction to his quip about her sire, he deduced the truth. A fledgling deprived of the calming influence of its master often had a habit of becoming feral. Without the guidance and instruction normally accorded a fledge during the first years of its unlife, the creature could easily be overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity of a thousand new abilities, thoughts and feelings that were alien to the human mind. It was possible to correct the damage, provided that action was taken quickly. This one, however, was already on the borderline, and therefore dangerous: furthermore, Kain sensed a strong antipathy to himself, although he could not guess its cause.  
  
He glanced thoughtfully at the fledge once more as he wiped the blood from his mouth, then without another word, he turned to leave.  
  
As Freya watched the immortal depart, she was torn. His chilling presence, though a blight on her untrained fledgling senses, had offered a strange sense of comfort: the fact that he, as a mature vampire must know about the confusing drives and emotions that were wracking her system on a daily basis and sending her ever closer to the brink of insanity was a powerful lure. Even now, Freya felt somewhat calmer after his blatant display of power, and on a certain level, she was loath to see him leave. On another, deeper level, however, lay the knowledge of the heinous deeds this lifeless bastard would commit over the next thousand years. His oppressive rule with its unnecessary bloodshed, his damnation of the land, and last but not least his actions against Raziel, and consequently the rest of the Clan all amounted to a plethora of sins for which he would never be forgiven.  
  
Kain paused with his back still towards her, and cast a throwaway comment over his shoulder.  
  
"I am raising an army." Hearing no response, he swung lithely around to face the woman once again, his gaze at once seductive, knowing, reassuring.  
  
"Come with me, fledgling. I have need of officers with appetites for such wilful destruction. Besides," he added shrewdly, "There is much I can teach you."  
  
The woman's feral yellow eyes met his, her newly-made decision overriding her former fear of him, and silver light scintillated from a battered Razielim scimitar as she gave him her answer.  
  
*  
  
Isca lay sleeplessly in the shuttered chamber, the early afternoon sunlight denied entrance by the stout defence of ancient wood. Ever and anon he glanced at the sleeping form of the woman who lay curled against his side, a small smile curving her lips even in her sleep. As he gingerly stroked a renegade lock of hair from her pale forehead, he felt her react to his touch with a wriggle and a sigh, aware of his proximity even when in the grasp of fledgling sleep. At her response, the vampire was wracked again by guilt for the action he was about to undertake. Closing his eyes fleetingly as he willed himself to leave the comforting embrace of his lover, Isca gently detached himself from her somnolent grasp and rose to dress. Hazarding one last harrowed glance at the curving outlines of his mate, he exited the chamber. Although from her point of view the Clan would be gone for less than a day, Isca had no idea how long it might be for him before he would once again know the comfort of her tender affections.  
  
Although the entrance hall in which the company was scheduled to meet lay but a few minutes' walk from the room he had just vacated, Isca chose to take one last tour around the periphery of the walled fortress, more to give himself time to think than to check for any imagined dangers. On a certain level he knew that Raziel had the right of it: the presence of a newborn fledgling on a mission such as theirs would amount to nothing more than an unmitigated hindrance. Despite the woman's frequent moments of insight, not to mention her recently enhanced fighting skills, her aversion to daylight constituted a serious impediment to the undertaking of their quest, one which Raziel was not prepared to accept.  
  
The difficulty had been not in taking the decision, but in persuading his single-minded Lord not to tell the woman of their plan. Raziel was of the opinion that the fledgling should be content with her lot - she would after all be spared the unknown danger of the time-locked battle and yet be able to live in the new, safer future their efforts would provide. Isca on the other hand was well aware of Freya's prideful nature: she would most likely take the decision as a symptom of their chauvinist mindset and rebel - in spades. He had therefore convinced his Lord to keep their plan a secret to spare the woman's feelings, instead intending to deal with the repercussions upon their return.  
  
He was almost looking forward to that part.  
  
*  
  
Raziel and the eight surviving Elite were awaiting his arrival at the front gates, the Vampire Lord making a show of tapping his cloven foot on the paved floor in mock-impatience. He shot his second-in-command a chiding glance as he drew level.  
  
"Well, now that we have everybody. . ."  
  
"No need to labour the point," grumbled Isca, his fledgling's slumbering mind still an intense presence in the back of his own. He became aware that Raziel was looking at him sharply and he added, almost as an afterthought, "My Lord."  
  
His oversight brought back the conversation that had passed between the two of them as dawn rose that morning. They had been talking alone in the echoing vault of the conference room, having sent the remaining Elite to feed and rest before their departure, and Raziel had been elaborating on his theory for the restoration of the land.  
  
"Janos Audron once told me that the Pillars were the lock and the Reaver was the key," He stated, idly swirling the rapidly cooling contents of his goblet. "Since the blade that is my symbiont now appears only in the Spectral Realm, I have assumed that I need the Reaver in its physical form."  
  
"So all we need to do is travel back to obtain a physical version of the Reaver?" offered Isca.  
  
"No. Not just any version: it must be the version that is aligned with this time - the Reaver that is of this world's true age. I need to find the very blade Kain tore from me in the Sarafan Stronghold."  
  
"So we need to find Kain." Guessed the vampire, trying to follow his Lord's train of thought.  
  
Raziel nodded, pacing towards the hearth, lost in contemplation. "The last thing he said to me was that we had walked into the Hylden's trap. This was something new to me - all Kain's dealings with that alien race were concluded long before he initially resurrected me and my brethren." The vampire paced back towards his companion, one claw pressed to his lips in meditation.  
  
"But Kain's catastrophic alteration of the time-line may well mean that they found a way to escape the demon dimension to which he consigned them. I believe he may have travelled in time to try to avert or alleviate the consequences of this particular event."  
  
Isca nodded distractedly.  
  
"We will travel to the Chronoplast: When I cornered Kain there previously there were several images on the walls outside - whatever changes have been made to the time-stream should also have affected the visions portrayed therein. Maybe they will give me a clue as to Kain's current location in time. I deem this to be our best chance for now - Are we agreed?"  
  
When Isca failed to respond, Raziel swung around to see that the attention of his second-in-command was noticeably concentrated elsewhere.  
  
"Isca!"  
  
Raziel's harsh bark roused the vampire from his reverie. The Dark Lord approached with an air of ill-concealed displeasure.  
  
"If your attention is going to wander thus in the battles that will surely come, I may be forced to replace you in the chain of command."  
  
Isca found his shame at his distractedness quickly giving sway to anger as he balked at Raziel's inference.  
  
"When the time for bloodshed comes, you will not find me wanting." He vowed ominously.  
  
"I had better not. There are others waiting to take your place."  
  
The remark galled the vampire, goading him into the ultimate rejoinder.  
  
"A pity they were not so willing when Turel invaded the Clanlands." He snarled.  
  
Silence held sway for long seconds as each waited for the other to rescind; the recently revitalised Saviour of Nosgoth and his precocious, determined offspring stood toe to toe in a gesture of stubborn, intractable menace. At length, Isca's deeply ingrained respect overruled his pride, and, with another destination exhorting an more irresistible lure with each passing second, he turned on his heel and loped out of the room, leaving the Vampire Lord in regretful solitude as he went.  
  
The advent of a new day placed such foolish confrontations in a more sensible light, the parties involved attributing the minor dispute to heightened tension before so daring an undertaking. Even so, it was a subdued mood that held sway over the company of ten as they began their journey, forging a path in blind ignorance of the outlandish creatures they alerted to their passing.  
  
Author's notes.  
  
Yeah, in case anyone hadn't guessed by now, I've been playing Blood Omen 2 again, which was why I found it necessary to wax lyrical over Kain. *dreamy sigh* 


	7. Uprising

As dusk fell on Nosgoth's ravaged terrain, the deserted halls of Moebius' ultimate toy began to resound with the steady, rhythmic beat of cloven feet on marble. The shadowy murals and undulating sculptures that adorned every curving wall and twisting column added an air of disquiet to the already uncertain atmosphere emanating from the small party of vampires. Raziel, having already seen various disturbing images on this midnight portal during his previous visit to the chamber, was prepared for the possibilities; his men were not. He knew, as they did not, that the visions represented probability; the past, present and future events that flickered across the portal's surface were reflections of things that could happen; did happen; might never be. However, Raziel was almost certain that the major changes to Nosgoth's timeline would ensure discrepancies in the images depicted, and that through the variance, they could track down both Kain and the blade.  
  
The group assembled before the pulsating, warping pool of starlight in complete silence, allowing Raziel to take to the fore. For several minutes, the sight before them remained constant: flickering, bending, distorting constellations with no beginning nor end. All at once, the pinpoints of light began to coalesce, forming by degrees into a scene so lifelike it was hard to believe that one could not just step into the breach. Isca was sorely tempted to try anyway as, when the initial image of the emaciated form of his Lord decimating the spirit-bound guardian of the Pillars evanesced, the particles commingled anew to form a vision that struck him to the core.  
  
A youthful, undead Kain stood transfixed at the zenith of a powerful strike, his combative stance caught in lurid freeze-frame glory as the Reaver penetrated the chest of his opponent. His adversary, face twisted in agony, was frozen in her death throes, one pale hand gripping the blade that pierced her chest, while a well-used scimitar tumbled from the limp grip of the other.  
  
Raziel glanced reassuringly at his second-in-command. "Few of these events hold any truth, Isca."  
  
The comment had evidently done little to comfort the smitten vampire, and as Raziel watched the next set of events unfold, he began to share a measure of his companion's trepidation. The image of Kain and Freya was not the only vision that was new to him, and a disturbing number of them seemed to pertain to the Vampire Master's early years. The next image to form was one that Raziel knew to be factual: Kain, still young, led a small army against the Sarafan knights - he had undertaken this mission almost immediately after his defeat of the 'Sarafan Lord' and his banishment of the Hylden. However, the following scene disturbed him, as it showed Kain meeting with the Vampire Cabal - the outcome was not pleasant; neither was the following scene of destruction as Kain cut a swathe of through the remaining bastions of humankind, sealing the fate of his own Vampiric Empire before it had chance to flourish. The mutated forms of his brethren appeared next, and with them, in an unholy visualization that Raziel would have paid dearly to have scratched from his memory, he saw himself; a hideous, malformed demon, a cross-breed of bat and serpent.  
  
"Our plans have changed." He informed his followers numbly without once glancing from the awful scene on the portal. "I have to see for myself that this does not occur."  
  
"You said yourself these events are mere probability," said Isca, pointedly asking for a reiteration of his Lord's assurance. "Raziel," he called at his leader's departing form, the tone of his voice rising to urgency. "You said it was just probability . . ."  
  
The Vampire Messiah was beyond heeding, throwing open the massive double doors to the Chronoplast and striding inside without so much as a backwards glance. A soft, sycophantic voice arrested his progress.  
  
"You are leading your men into danger, Reaver of Souls."  
  
Raziel paused on the upper walkway, an irritated sigh escaping his lips as he recognised the obsequious tones.  
  
"I no longer use that title, Moebius."  
  
Isca's ears flattened against his skull as he recognised the Oracle by whom he and Freya had been duped so recently.  
  
"How many times are you going to try to interfere with my plans, old man?"  
  
"Until my ultimate design comes to fruition." Replied he, stepping into the light on the opposite side of the chamber.  
  
Raziel was losing patience. He had encountered the Time-Streamer on more than one occasion, and each meeting had endeared him less and less to the ancient's company.  
  
"Get out of our way or face the consequences."  
  
Moebius laughed haughtily. "Come now, 'Saviour of Nosgoth', you know as well as I that it is not you who will end my days. Destiny's design cannot be altered, Raziel."  
  
"I no longer believe that, Time-Streamer," replied the Vampire Messiah with utter conviction, striding across to stand before the withered ancient, and affording him a close-up view of the incandescent flames that lurked in the depths of his eyes.  
  
"I believe that destiny's design can not only be altered, it can be erased."  
  
Moebius gave a half-laugh, as though expecting a punchline. It melted from his weathered features as he realised the vampire was in earnest.  
  
"Kain was wrong," Raziel went on, "Free will is not an illusion - except to those without the courage of their own convictions."  
  
Moebius shook his head, uncomprehending and more than a little perturbed by the sheer, passionate belief emanating from the winged being.  
  
"There is no set course for the future," the vampire continued, leaning forward until he was almost nose-to-nose with the quaking Time-Streamer. "Kain himself proved that when he drew the Reaver from my chest - and if the future is not certain," added Raziel with a leer of long-sought-after victory, "Then neither is the past."  
  
The chamber resounded with a high-pitched shriek of denial and fear as Moebius tumbled from the third tier of the Chronoplast to land in a broken heap of mauve and scarlet, a short-bladed sabre transfixing his gullet.  
  
Raziel breathed rapidly, the euphoria of autonomy after a seeming eternity as the pawn of others coursing through his system like an opiate. The heady rush of control filled him at once with elation and dread. Here, in the crux of time itself, he had made a monumental decision - to enter unbidden and unadvised into the manipulation of the time-stream, and flaunt the consequences. Moebius was dead. Not at Kain's hand as history dictated, but at his own. Victory consumed him, and, buoyed by the freedom and clarity of thought he experienced in its wake, he enjoined his company to aid him in the activation of the chamber.  
  
Time itself would bend to his will.  
  
*  
  
The Pillars of Nosgoth lay in ruin, their sanctity forever damned by the egotistical whim of a single man. Tonight, however, they were the site of much activity. A small company of vampires, having shed their sable armour, were industriously shifting the fallen remains of the toppled columns from the circular dais at the base of the stumps. By means of their legendary strength, the clearing of hundreds of tons of rubble was accomplished in a fraction of the time it would have taken as a human endeavour - not that any creature still in possession of a mortal soul would have set foot in that cursed place once dusk had settled.  
  
Kain oversaw the work with a proprietary eye. It appealed to his sense of irony to install his Empire here, at the still-beating heart of his treachery. His sense of satire was being borne out in other areas today: he had gathered to him an elite, if small group of servants, hardy and partial to his cause. Ever a believer in the power of persuasion over bland threats, he had bound them to him by their own desire for power, and as the ultimate mockery, he had named them after the elite of the Sarafan order: The Inquisitors. As the lurid moon caused morbid shades to flow across the newly cleared base of the Pillars, Kain felt that the hour was ripe, and with a single imperious command, the labourers became warriors once again.  
  
As he viewed the undead ranks ranged before him in respectful silence, he was assailed once again by the memory of the young fledge he had encountered in the sewer - rare were the occasions when Kain was caught by surprise; but the vehemence of her reaction to his proposition had been enough to startle even him. The future Emperor of Nosgoth (he liked that title - so much more intimidating than 'King') put such trifling thoughts from his mind as his new army of Inquisitors fell into position behind him. The coming weeks would herald the start of his quest to eradicate the Sarafan order -their crimes against vampirekind would not go unpunished. His newfound contempt for humanity was superseded only by his hatred for those of his own kind who fawned over them, and tonight would see the immortals in question bend to his will - or join the humans in their damnation.  
  
*  
  
"Vorador." The address was a challenge.  
  
"Kain. You return. I take it that you defeated the Sarafan Lord?" queried Vorador, sensing the younger vampire's edgy mood.  
  
Kain afforded his elder a sarcastic glance and continued to pace restlessly about the chamber.  
  
"Why have you returned here?"  
  
Kain paused, eyeing the green-skinned vampire shrewdly. "To ask you to join me in my conquest of humanity."  
  
Vorador cast an uneasy glance at a cloaked figure who quickly scurried from the corner of the room to the open door, vanishing from sight.  
  
"Times are changing, Kain. The Cabal has new plans . . . you joined forces with us once - ally yourself with us again now."  
  
"Your plans happened to coincide with my own. That is all. The Sarafan Lord doomed himself to die at my hand the moment he stole the Reaver from me. No, it is your loyalties that lie with me, Vorador, after all, without my intervention, you and yours would still be under the tyrannical oppression of the Hylden." He turned from the bat-eared immortal, addressing the remainder of the room's occupants, their attention instantly captivated by the seductive, self-assured power of his words.  
  
"A new era is coming. My era. You can all be part of its glory . . . or die as victims of its rule."  
  
His piercing gaze took in every vampire in the Cabal, one by one. Not one of them met his eye.  
  
"I warn you: If you do not swear allegiance to me here and now, I will deal with you in the same way as I would any traitor."  
  
"As you dealt with Umah?" asked Vorador miserably. "When she obeyed a command from us that conflicted with your plans, you ended her life without remorse or regret."  
  
Kain ground his teeth at the mention of the female vampire's name. "She betrayed me."  
  
Vorador shook his head dismissively, they had already had this argument, and its reiteration would not bring back his trusted lieutenant.  
  
"What you propose, Kain, it is genocide, and I cannot in all conscience advocate it. Your loathing for mankind can bring about no good. There is a need for balance - you of all people should appreciate that."  
  
The world held its breath. Only the steadily crackling of the fire dared the creature's ire. Vorador's comment had speared Kain to his very soul, reminding him of his own refusal to sacrifice himself, and unfortunately for the ancient, tipping the scales. At a word from the white-haired conqueror, a stream of armoured knights poured into the Cabal headquarters, demanding the vampires' surrender.  
  
"There is no balance for Nosgoth, nor will there ever be." vowed Kain, stepping closer to the elder vampire, his eyes yellow slits of wrath. "I will see to that."  
  
He watched as, in accordance with his orders, his Inquisitors began to decimate the Cabal Sanctuary, smashing valuables and setting the walls alight in an orgy of destruction. Then, their vindictive rage sated, the Inquisitors began to herd the thoroughly cowed vampires into a corner.  
  
"We await your word, my Lord," the Head Inquisitor informed him. "Do we kill?"  
  
"No. Leave them to ponder the impropriety of their decision for now." declared Kain generously. He turned once again to Vorador, eyeing him with contempt. "This world is mine to conquer, Vorador. You would have been welcomed as a partisan of my Empire, but now I leave you to rot with your Sarafan pets."  
  
The elder's eyes widened.  
  
"I know of the treaties you have attempted to forge with the human scum. I go to them now to contradict your words. Tell your rats to run, Vorador. Tell them to flee in fear before the terrors of the night.  
  
"Tell them Kain is coming."  
  
*  
  
Author's note  
  
Heh. Sorry. Had to get that last line in somewhere.  
  
*  
  
Review Response:  
  
MikotoTribal:  
  
Congratulations on winning another fan - I knew she'd like your story when she eventually came back to FFNet. : )  
  
As for the terrible trio, erm, no, they haven't turned up yet - but I did get a black postcard with a pair of white fangs painted on it that said "Transylvania by Night." I'm starting to wonder . . . And no, I haven't seen Jenise.  
  
Jenise: I'm over here. *waves fully superglued staff about from the bottom left-hand corner of the Word document in an attempt to attract attention*  
  
Lilith: *switches to Excel* Nope, haven't seen her anywhere. *evil grin*  
  
*  
  
Deionarra:  
  
Where do I want you? Well, if you could stand a bit to the left. Bit more. That's it.  
  
*pulls lever, trapdoor opens, Deionarra vanishes with a 'whoosh'*  
  
Bwahahahahaaaa. That'll teach you write such good stories at your age!  
  
Aw, bugger.  
  
You're not going to write any more while you're down there, are you?  
  
*drums fingers on desk for a while*  
  
*pushes button (the one underneath the Plans for World Domination), trapdoor opens again.*  
  
Sorry. Heh. Just a bit lever-happy at the moment.  
  
*lobs copy of Blood Omen 2 at Deionarra, frisbee-style*  
  
And don't come back until you've finished it!  
  
*  
  
Vladimir's Angel:  
  
Ooh! Thanks very much. *leafs through the Dictionary*  
  
So that's what quantum phase dynamics are! No wonder my Death Ray's not working. . .  
  
Sets aside one leather catsuit for Angel (the only one with a Batman utility belt) : ) 


	8. Torment

Warning: This chapter gets a bit violent / sadistic towards the end. It's that darned blood Omen 2 again - always makes me feel so . . . nasty. : [  
  
Maybe I should switch to Kingdom Hearts for a while.  
  
*  
  
Breathless, the cloaked figure staggered doggedly on, its flapping rainment rendering it a repeat victim of malicious roots and vindictive branches. Fallen, winded, it regained its feet, the flash of chest and hip revealed by the billowing cloak marking it undeniably female. The woman's thundering heartbeat deafened her to the telltale sounds of pursuit, the splashing of her exhausted feet through treacherous puddles representing another hostile enemy. Not a moment too soon, her destination loomed. Forgoing caution in favour of haste, the woman half-ran, half-slid down the steep, mud-caked path that opened onto the broad plain before the Sarafan Stronghold, its magnificent façade exuding an aura of timeless tranquility.  
  
Sanctuary.  
  
Brushing aside comments on her appearance and queries as to her well-being from the aides that greeted her arrival, she strode purposefully to the double doors of the Lord Protector's quarters and immediately gave a knock whose force ensured it could not possibly be ignored.  
  
"Enter," came a carrying, self-possessed voice from within.  
  
"Lord Protector," began the woman in a breathless greeting, "I have urgent news."  
  
The person addressed was a striking, sturdy, dark-haired male in his early thirties, currently sporting half a suit of armour, the upper sections laying haphazardly on a trestle table before him, along with a collection of tools. He turned his head at the young woman's entrance and at once interrupted the flow of information he knew was about to pour out - the girl looked fit to fall over.  
  
Laying down a copper-headed hammer with little thought for precision, he strode to her side, taking control of the situation as though long accustomed to such practices.  
  
"Sit down, drink this," he commanded, deftly pouring a measure of some revitalising liquid into a handy goblet. "Then tell me."  
  
The woman hurried to obey, knowing he would not let her continue until she had done as he asked - he was quite pig-headed about such things. Gulping down a fingers' breadth of the bittersweet spirit, and already feeling much better for having the weight off her feet - not to mention the vampires off her trail - she began her story.  
  
"Kain attacked the Cabal."  
  
The Lord Protector, who had taken a seat next to hers, paled visibly, his fingers tightening around the stem of his own drinking vessel until the knuckles showed white.  
  
"Go on."  
  
"He now intends to launch an attack against us."  
  
The knight's shocked expression belied his disbelief at such audacity.  
  
"Well, maybe not here initially," put in the woman at his surprised glance, "But he has declared war."  
  
"On the Sarafan?"  
  
"On Humanity."  
  
With a determined exhalation, the Lord Protector rose to his feet, his mind quickly running through the implications of the girl's information. Their recently-considered treaty with Vorador's inhuman Cabal would gather urgency now. If Kain was indeed to launch a strike against the bastions of humankind (and he was well aware that the Stronghold would constitute a prime target), it was more important than ever that the treaty was concluded - especially if, as the girl's intelligence indicated, Kain was being thorough enough to victimise those of his own kind who opposed his plans. He turned once more to the young woman; her willingness to act as go-between for the proposed Sarafan-Cabal union had made her a valuable ally, despite her history.  
  
"Thank you, Seline."  
  
"You're welcome, Lord Protector." At his lopsided look of mock-reproof, she added, " . . . Roland."  
  
The girl found her face breaking into a shy smile, despite her best efforts. The man's light-hearted approachability was contagious: he was well-known for his relaxed attitude and skilled handling of people, as well as his impressively commanding presence in battle. These seemingly contradictory traits formed an unusual balance which had earned him the respect and friendship of all who served under him, as well as those who occupied higher positions in the Sarafan hierarchy. His rise to the current title of 'Lord Protector', a position usually associated with back- stabbing and usurping, had instead been achieved by dint of hard work, keen martial judgement and unswerving honesty. There were few who harboured him ill-will, even amongst those of noble descent who might otherwise have laid claim to his role of leadership. Lord Roland would be long remembered.  
  
Seline allowed her smile to run its course, and then, after taking another sip of the thoroughly warming beverage, she asked, "So, what do you need me to do?"  
  
Roland resumed his seat and picked up his goblet, savouring its contents briefly before meeting her questioning gaze with his own pensive one, and replying:  
  
"How do you feel about another trip to Meridian?"  
  
*  
  
In the last two nights, his army had doubled.  
  
Once a scant fourteen, the fruit of his vitae now numbered close on thirty, all wild, all thirsting for Sarafan blood. Although it had severely drained his system (not to mention the human herd who inhabited the vicinity of the Pillars) to create so many in so short a time, the results were well worth a modicum of suffering, a state to which Kain was by now more or less inured. It was his intention to first march on distant Coorhagen, the city of his original birth, and bring it under his control. When he had amassed sufficient forces, he would turn his armies back in the direction of Uschtenheim, and eventually, when its defences had fallen to his will, to his ultimate goal: The Sarafan Stronghold. Kain was well aware that this campaign would take time, but as an immortal, it was not as though this particular element was lacking. Besides, the longer the term of his conquest, the greater the army with which to despoil the lands of his enemies.  
  
Kain would bide his time.  
  
Putting his long-term plans from his mind, the future Conqueror of Nosgoth turned to inspect his troops. They were a ragged bunch, of widely varying heights and builds, and although he had endeavoured to choose those of the warrior caste, the pickings had been slim, and consequently a number of his new recruits erred on the side of portliness or emaciation. Nevertheless, he was fully aware that in a very few weeks, their vampiric constitutions would overcome such frailties of form, leaving him with a redoubtable force from which the armies of mankind would earn their bloody, tortured deaths. Their garb was his immediate concern: the motley assortment of peasant rags and rusting armour represented a sight that would likely invoke ridicule instead of the required fear. Kain idly wondered where he might acquire twenty-eight suits of black chainmail at short notice.  
  
Progress to the North was slow, the fledgling vampires' advance impeded by the inevitable turning of the world on its axis, the diurnal illumination spelling instant death for ones so young. Kain chafed at the delay, immune as he was after so many centuries of undeath to the blistering rays of Nosgoth's sun. However, the silver lining lay in the fact that their slowed progress allowed time for the forging of armour and the acquiring of new weaponry. It was therefore a fully armed and armoured contingent, numbering close on fifty, that approached Coorhagen barely a month after their departure from the Pillars.  
  
Starlight danced tantalisingly on Coorhagen's massive metal gates, the lustrous sparkle a reminder of the inviolate sanctity of the fortressed walls. Amber flames flickered at well-spaced intervals atop the saw- toothed fortifications, marking the location of each dozing member of the night-watch. In their rehearsed positions outside the town, Kain's fledgling ranks stood divided into two sections: the former, consisting of his initially-birthed Elite, clad in the desired sable maille: the latter, comprising the villagers he had deigned to turn in desperation for numbers, garbed in simple leather armour, the bat-like symbol of their master embossed on each rapidly-heaving chest. Kain's formidable form stood a little way to the fore, taking in the familiar sight of the gates of his home-town. What was it that was said? One could always return to one's roots. Well, this son of Coorhagen was going to come back and show his people what he had made of himself - not that any of them would remember him.  
  
At a prearranged signal from the master of the vampires, wooden ladders were brought forth, and nature, locked in a nocturnal embrace, awaited the command in somnolent unease.  
  
"Vae Victus!"  
  
The imperious challenge was echoed by fifty lusty voices as wood was set to stone, and screams of anguish began to arise from every quarter of the town as Kain's vampiric forces penetrated the ancient city.  
  
Those of Kain's army who were formerly peasants, freed by his whim from their daily labours and thrust into a night-time world of lustful violence, were the first on the scene. The nobles of the city were destined to feel their blades: these undead held a seething hatred for the overdressed, corpulent rich for their treatment at the hands of their peers. No mercy was shown, and offers of money and power were a frequent accompaniments to melodramatic death throes. The aristocracy died snivelling on its knees.  
  
The Inquisitors were not so discerning in their tastes, but far more exacting in their methods of punishment. Wheresoever flashed the blade of one of Kain's Elite squad, there followed limitless pain for the victim. One unfortunate citizen met a group of four of the maille-clad demons after being chased down a blind alley. Their features obscured by silvered, wedge-shaped helmets, the faceless butchers advanced with palpable menace, one of their number passing a single word to inaugurate the man's ordeal.  
  
"Quarter."  
  
Before the hapless human could react, the quartet converged on him with the alacrity and eagerness of a wolf-pack. Each taking a limb in their powerful grip, the four proceeded to coax the man's extremities to the opposing points of the compass. Initially offering a heartfelt plea for his life, the man's entreaties degenerated into howls of pain as his tendons were stretched slowly and agonisingly past their breaking points, the straining noise audible to every occupant of the alleyway. The male began to throw his head violently from side to side as the fire in his nerve-endings became intolerable, and he began to thrash about in an attempt to ease the pressure. Fortunately for him, his struggles speeded the process, the added weight of his thinning muscles aiding the inevitable tearing of skin and popping of cartilage until with a final heave, the man's torso separated from his limbs. A shocked face stared up at the four pitiless creatures who hovered above him - the man's body had landed precipitously in a puddle of his own vital fluid, and the squelch was unfortunately not the last thing he heard. his tortured senses closed on a barrage of thumps as the Inquisitors proceeded to beat him to death with his own severed limbs.  
  
Coorhagen's streets ran red with blood. It was an oft-used cliché, but this night the image held truth. Darting through the congealing streams of fluid that coursed through the central square, a young woman of noble birth sought the safety of her home. Risking a glance to her rear, the girl found that her dark-garbed pursuers had given up the chase, apparently to converge on closer prey. With a sigh of relief, she returned her gaze to the fore, to see a sight that froze her in her tracks. The creature that stood before her was unlike any of the others she had seen ravaging the city this dreadful night: it wore little armour, seemingly content with the dubious protection of leather for legs and shoulders alone. Its skin was the colour of corpse lips, its hair a silvered cascade of cobwebs, its eyes reminiscent of candle-flame.  
  
"Keep away from me!"  
  
Kain disregarded the command and seized the woman by the throat, lifting her from the ground in a single smooth, practised motion. The female scrabbled at her neck, at the freezing claws that were threatening to crush the life from her, and emitted a choking squeal. The predator's eyes locked onto those of the struggling noble, intent on savouring every iota of her suffering. A cruel smile spread across his savage features as he hefted the spiked mace he had pilfered from the town guard, allowing the bulging eyes of his prey to see the instrument of her destruction before swinging it sharply in a brutal upstroke. Kain continued to watch fascinated as, with each strike, the noble's face demonstrated her decreasing awareness of his tormenting of her. The future conqueror frowned: he would have to devise a means of sustaining his victims' consciousness until the moment of release. Allowing the pulped form to fall to the floor with a distracted motion, Kain sated his other needs.  
  
In another quarter of the city, a debased creature stalked its own prey. Kain's Head Inquisitor had reached its rank by means of its unequalled callousness toward other forms of life, its bloodlust surprising even the sadistic Vampire Master. It now tracked its desired quarry to the very threshold of its abode, the overfed Mayor turning around a second too late as he belatedly sensed his pursuer.  
  
"Please - I beg you. Do not harm me."  
  
The Head Inquisitor stared back, its expression unguessable within the confines of the helmet.  
  
"I have wealth - I can offer twice what you're paid."  
  
The inquisitor began to advance, apparently still immune to the rotund councillor's offers.  
  
The mayor cringed, resorting to the ultimate sacrifice. "There are more inside - my family. Take them instead."  
  
As though appeased, the maille-clad figure extended a hand towards its victim in the universally recognised gesture for a closed agreement. However, its sharp-nailed hand never met the shaking, pudgy digits of the Mayor, the arm instead continuing in its advance until it met with the profusely sweating male's chest. Nor did it stop there. The Mayor's face contorted into a girlish expression of unmanly fear as the creature inserted its fingers unrelentingly into his chest. The probing digits shredded layers of fat as they progressed, circumventing the well-concealed ribcage until finally they came to rest at the aortic cavity. The obese councillor shot one horrified glance at the creature's expressionless helm from where he stood transfixed against his own front door, before the Inquisitor wrenched his still-beating heart from his chest with a theatrical flourish. The man emitted one incredulous sigh before sinking in an ungainly manner to the ground.  
  
Kain's head Inquisitor deftly removed the sagging, three-chinned head before entering the man's abode and depositing its grisly trophies on the dinner table before the dumbstruck family.  
  
It remained in the dining room to ensure they finished their meal.  
  
*  
  
Author's Notes  
  
Ooh - I used a metaphor in Coorhagen. Aren't you proud of me?  
  
Dunno if anyone remembers that far back (or cares for that matter), but this is the same Roland that Cornelius mentioned when Freya asked him about challenging for land. Yeah, I didn't know he was going to turn up either, but hey, I don't write these things, they just come through my fingers! Just like the cloaked figure in the last chapter - she just wrote herself into the story (cheeky cow) AND gave herself a name! Tchoh!  
  
*brief delay in updates while Lilith takes a long-overdue trip to the loony- bin*  
  
"Stra a aa aa nge things are happening - to me . . ." somebody take away my copy of Toy Story - please! 


	9. Alliances

It was not until the spring of the third year of Kain's invasion that Vorador finally conceded, and allowed Lord Roland and a chosen few of his retinue admittance to his lands. Although several meetings had been held on neutral ground to establish the framework for the proposed treaty, old grievances died hard, and had continually interfered in the uniting of the two peoples. As for Kain, much of the self-proclaimed Emperor's activity had heretofore been focused in the North, as he amassed troops and weapons of war in preparation for his return to Southerly climes. This dreaded time, it seemed, had now come to pass. And so it was that one windswept, remarkable evening, the first humans to set foot inside Vorador's inner sanctum - other than as a source of food - in many a century, joined the Sado-hedonist in his Council Chambers.  
  
"Will Seline not be joining us?" Began Vorador, by way of greeting, his liking for the impulsive young woman evident by his dismay at her absence.  
  
Roland's silence made the undead glance at him in concern. The Lord Protector swallowed against the lump that had arisen in his throat and said, "The Inquisitors. . ."  
  
Vorador closed his luminous eyes. "When?"  
  
"Two nights ago. They allowed her to get almost to the Stronghold before they attacked her in plain sight." Vorador's face belied his distaste for such flagrant flaunting of power.  
  
"They hung her body from the walls of Meridian - what was left of it."  
  
The Ancient offered his sincere condolences. He was well aware of the relationship that had flourished between the Lord Protector and his trusted agent. The young woman would be missed - but now was not the time to dwell on such morbid thoughts: there was work to be done and a treaty to be concluded at long last.  
  
"You have your audience," Vorador informed him, not without compassion. "Speak."  
  
Roland put aside his own grief and stepped forward in a stately manner, his presence as arresting to members of the Vampire nation as it was to those of his own.  
  
"Kain lays siege to the land. Both Uschtenheim and Meridian have fallen to his army of unholy Inquisitors," Seeing that the assembled undead were less than impressed, he added, "- as well as Nupraptor's Keep." That assured their attention.  
  
"If we stand together, our combined forces may be enough to stem the tide of his conquest before all our peoples are crushed beneath his iron fist."  
  
An influential Ancient spoke up, voicing the thought that had already run through the minds of several other immortals in the room.  
  
"Tell me, Human, why should we ally ourselves with you? We are old and powerful - your affairs are none of our concern."  
  
"Kain's Inquisitor Squad will come knocking on your door as surely as they will call on mine, Vampire. The time for united action is now."  
  
Vorador nodded in agreement, casting a quelling glance at the Vampire who had spoken. "Much as it galls me to say so, we can no longer afford to be enemies."  
  
"I appreciate your candour, Vorador. Rest assured we will do nothing to abuse your trust in us."  
  
"Trust? Who said anything about trust? We are allies of necessity, no more."  
  
Roland smiled affably at the vampire's attempt at a stony front in the presence of his peers. "Agreed."  
  
"Very well," continued the emerald-skinned immortal, withdrawing a map from a well-stocked drawer. "Let us choose the best location to make our stand."  
  
Unfortunately for Vorador, this was a decision that was never his to make, as the sound of a skirmish reached his sensitive ears.  
  
"To arms! We are attacked!"  
  
Several thirsting blades emerged naked and glistening from their sheaths, their owners rising to the challenge with lusty roars and growls, each according to their nature. As one entity, the unusual hotchpotch of Human and Vampire warriors charged through the torchlit corridors of Vorador's mansion, ready and willing to meet Kain's lackeys with the courage of the righteous.  
  
The first wave of the conqueror's offensive strike had reached the outer doors, and its members were even now busily dispatching Vorador's personal guards with a combination of swordplay and fire. Roland was first into the fray, cutting down the leather-armoured fiends and sending any who faced him flying backwards into the swamp, where the waters claimed them with hisses of steam. Vorador had called the rest of his Vampire forces to arms, and, unprepared as they were, they surged forward to range themselves on the steps, their lack of protective clothing deterring them not a whit. The swamp-dwelling Vampire chanced an analytical glance at the army that surrounded his home, searching for the tell-tale white locks of Nosgoth's ravager. Kain was nowhere to be seen.  
  
Presently, it seemed that the ground forces were thinning, the combination of Sarafan and Vampire defence working admirably to repel the would-be invaders, and Vorador's eyes flashed as he sensed the impending approach of victory.  
  
"Vorador," came an uneasy request for attention.  
  
The Vampire glanced at Roland, eyebrows raised in response. "Hm?"  
  
"Is there another way out of your fortress?"  
  
Reluctant to give his recent and barely-trusted ally such sensitive information, Vorador queried his reasons.  
  
"We may have to evacuate."  
  
Vorador frowned, a derisive puff of air escaping his lips. He failed to take in another breath, however, as he too saw what had caught the lord Protector's attention. From the high-rising ridges that surrounded the waterlogged clearing, black-mailled figures were marching in a well- practiced rhythm. Line after line trooped into the clearing around the high-walled abode, turning the plain below black with their combined presence. Vorador could not even hazard a guess at their numbers: suffice to say that the presence of the forty or so partisans in his mansion equalled less than a quarter of the oppressive company that marched relentlessly towards them. Nonetheless, he held firm.  
  
"I will not surrender my house!"  
  
Roland turned to the Vampire in concern, the latter's recalcitrant attitude assuring him that there was no chance of convincing him otherwise. He sighed. He had already agreed to stand by them - besides, if it had been the Stronghold under attack, he would not have abandoned it either. Roland's consternation increased as he recognised the armour of the westernmost contingent - the matte black chainmail, steel greaves and gauntlets, and wedge-shaped helmets identified them as none other than Kain's elite, the dreaded Inquisitors. From the size of the party even now walking towards them, the Vampire Master had sent them all.  
  
Roland's grip tightened on his broadsword. He had faced death many times and in many forms, but few of his experiences had chilled him to the same extent as this: the sight was enough to shake even his iron nerve as the Inquisitors led Kain's army of the undead against a scant few defenders in what was little more than a fortified manor house. Roland steeled himself for what was to come: if it was his fate to walk the Vampire Halls of the Dead this evening for his championing of their cause, they had better have a stein of their best beer waiting for him when he arrived.  
  
A single word, and the assault began in earnest. In a very few minutes, the front of Vorador's mansion was swarming with Kain's pets, their casual disregard for their own safety surpassed only by their disrespect for their opponents. No code of honour was observed by these obsessive creatures, born of thirst, and no quarter was given to any adversary, no matter the direction of his gaze, nor his possession of a weapon. The outcome looked grim. Roland shot a quick glance to his left where the main door was straining beneath a heaving, writhing mass of combatants, his momentary shift in concentration earning him a glancing blow across the forehead. From his prone position on the floor, he managed by luck more than skill to impale his opponent on his blade, the creature's tarry vitae pattering on his breastplate as he skewered it alive. Regaining his feet with a dizzy stagger, Roland attributed the sight that met his eyes to his disoriented state: it seemed almost as though the rearguard of Kain's troops was beset by a strange plague, one which caused them to violently lose their heads or leap into the air in spiralling fountains of gore.  
  
Shaking his head fiercely, Roland took a closer look, taking sparse moments between his gutting and slashing strokes to peer into the hazy distance. His vision had not misled him. Some other contingent had converged on the attacking army from behind, and was even now cutting a bloody path through the exact centre of the horde in a frantic attempt to reach sanctuary. That the party was small it was obvious: in a quick scan of their potential allies, Roland counted less than a dozen hacking blades. Nevertheless, they seemed to be making progress. The tight-knit group made its dogged way to the embattled forces on the blood-soaked steps of the mansion, cutting down the lesser creatures who strove in vain to inhibit their advance, to arrive at last at Vorador's side.  
  
The Ancient withdrew his blade from a vanquished adversary and turned to greet his unexpected reinforcements, addressing the sable-winged creature he took to be their leader.  
  
"You are most welcome here, friend."  
  
Raziel grinned in response. "That's good to hear, Vorador." With a steadily widening smile at the other vampire's confusion, the Dark Lord turned his blade on the remainder of Kain's demon horde.  
  
With the arrival of Raziel's fresh, well-seasoned Elite, the prospects of a favourable outcome for Kain's army turned sour. The ground troops' repeated attempts at penetrating the mansion were met with staunch rebuttal and an increasing loss of life. Finally realising the futility of this particular assault, the Head Inquisitor called a retreat, the prospect of informing the Vampire Master of the reasons for their withdrawal darkening the creature's mood.  
  
As dawn approached, the respective leaders of the allied forces involved in the skirmish, along with a few of their closest cohorts, converged on Vorador's recreation room. Opulently decorated, as befitted a creature of the elder vampire's reputation, the chamber afforded the battle-weary allies a measure of seldom- experienced comfort, while their host provided suitable hospitality. Vorador and Raziel were last to enter, having spent some time discussing the latter's presence and motives. Now, having dispensed with such formalities, the hedonist took to offering around a carafe of mulled wine, out of respect for his human guests.  
  
As though suddenly aware of his lack of manners, Vorador paused in the distribution of the libations and began the introductions. Raziel, who had been eyeing the young knight curiously, instantly rose to his feet and approached the man. Roland regarded him warily, ready to defend himself from this unusual-looking immortal, if necessary. To his utter surprise, the winged being nodded courteously to him, the gesture closer to a bow than even Raziel would have admitted. This Sarafan Knight was legend, an almost mythical figure of whom he had himself heard tales as a fledgling - even the Lieutenants had been awed by the fabled deeds of this incomparable human.  
  
Raziel extended his hand. "It is an honour."  
  
Lord Roland attained his feet out of courtesy in response to the gesture, and took the creature's three-clawed hand in a staunch grip.  
  
"Er . . . likewise."  
  
With an enigmatic grin, the Dark Lord resumed his seat next to Vorador while Isca paced restlessly nearby.  
  
"Your lieutenant seems ill at ease," commented the Ancient as Raziel's second-in-command proceeded to wear a groove in Vorador's red carpet.  
  
Raziel gave a long-suffering sigh. "He's besotted."  
  
"Ah. I understand. Here my friend," called Vorador, addressing the restless immortal, "Try some of this - guaranteed to put hairs on your chest."  
  
Isca scowled at the goblet as though it had affronted him personally. Nevertheless, after a moment's consideration, he accepted it.  
  
"That's the way. Listen, if it's a girl you're after, I have several lithe young . . ." Vorador broke off mid-sentence as the young vampire's glower convinced him that silence would be prudent.  
  
Turning his attention back to Raziel, he asked. "So, let me see if I've got this straight: you travelled here from the future to ensure that you don't get turned into some bat-demon."  
  
"And to ensure the Cabal is not slaughtered," added Raziel with a charming smile.  
  
"Of course," replied Vorador dryly. "But surely, since you appear to manifest the characteristics of neither bat nor serpent, surely you can surmise that the events you witnessed will not come to pass."  
  
Raziel eyed the contents of his goblet mournfully until Vorador motioned to one of his aides to refill it. He grinned his thanks before continuing.  
  
"It may be that the effects of Kain's manipulation of time are so far- reaching that their consequences have not yet reached the denizens of the far future. I intend to leave nothing to chance, Vorador. The events we witnessed," he paused, meeting Isca's gaze, which spoke reams of his impatience and his fury at his own impotence in the matter. "Suffice to say we will take all possible action to ensure they do not come to pass."  
  
Isca, at the limit of his tolerance, slammed down his goblet and made for the exit, seeking the relative cool of the night air.  
  
Raziel stared after him uneasily.  
  
"He will not go far." Commented Vorador.  
  
"I'm not so sure," replied he, rising to follow his son. "I wouldn't put it past him to try to track down Kain in some ridiculous attempt at gaining satisfaction through single combat - for something he probably didn't even do."  
  
Vorador raised an eyebrow.  
  
"He just needs an outlet for his frustration." He informed them, according them both a wry smile as he left the room.  
  
"Women." commented Vorador to his amused companion, "Ever the downfall of the brave."  
  
*  
  
Review Response:  
  
Deionarra:  
  
Freya's flawed? Oh yeah. That was intentional. (eek). As for her returning - dunno yet - I'm currently thinking revenge motive for Isca . . .  
  
As for BO2, yes it was highly overrated - God only knows why they couldn't have used the Soul Reaver engine for it (duh!), and the gameplay did consist entirely of endless repetitions of 'kill-the-baddy-drink-his-blood- flip-the-switch.' However, it's more than worth the effort just for Kain's cinematic scenes - Simon Templeman, WE'RE NOT WORTHY!  
  
*grovel grovel*  
  
MikotoTribal:  
  
Well, this chapter did originally go something like this:  
  
"Speak," began Vorador by way of greeting.  
  
"Ze vampiresh lay ziege du our landz" replied Donald, preening his white feathers and straightening his sailor suit.  
  
"And you think cartoon capers will save us?"  
  
Donald and Goofy broke into a sickening song and dance routine which induced several of Vorador's trusted servants to swan-dive into the swamp.  
  
Oh and the ending to the previous chapter went something like this:  
  
The inquisitors were merciless, and no noble was safe from their relentless tickling with feather dusters, nor their malicious name-calling.  
  
Kain's head Inquisitor waited at the Mayor's house until his family had finished their dinner before presenting them with tickets to the next Britney Spears concert.  
  
The Inquisitor would ensure they attended.  
  
Up to you - influences from Kingdom Hearts or BO2.  
  
: ) 


	10. Inquisitor

As Raziel emerged from Vorador's mansion into the dubious moonlight, he was met with the sight of his brooding offspring, who stood unmoving next to the low, blood-drenched wall just beyond the broad entrance.  He halted momentarily, gathering his thoughts.  It had been several centuries since Raziel himself had felt the call of the flesh – the implacable evolution of the vampiric id resulted in a steadily decreasing desire for the baser human pleasures.  Nevertheless, he understood his son's anguish (for such he had come to regard the headstrong young vampire in recent months), and was aware that, now more than ever, he needed his lieutenant in full control of his emotions and in full possession of his mental faculties.  Raziel sighed to himself: he had never imagined the various roles of leadership would come to include playing counsellor to his officers.

"I'm sure that image outside the chronoplast was a possibility from an alternate time-line." He began awkwardly, hoping that the tone of his voice was reassuring.

Isca continued to stare into the spreading darkness of the poison swamp, apparently unaware that Raziel had even spoken.  Unbeknownst to either party, Vorador had taken up a position behind them, and was now standing in observant silence in the shadows beneath the curving arch of his doorway.

"After all," Raziel continued in a reasonable tone, "What would Freya be doing here - in this time?"

Isca glowered at the swamp – just to have something to glower at.  He was good at glowering.  It made him feel better.  He did, however, realise that Raziel would want an answer.

Isca shrugged. 

At his sire's despairing sigh, he relented, turning his mind to the events at hand with the disciplined ease of one accustomed to living with turmoil.

"So, are you going to face Kain here?"

Raziel looked askance at him.

"You are far older and more powerful than he is now," continued Isca, "You could end his tyranny before it begins. . ."

"Thereby negating our own existence." Put in Raziel pointedly.

Isca lowered his head, unsure if even he could make that sacrifice.

"Then we should leave now," urged Isca. "We have prevented the destruction of the Cabal, as we intended.  Does this not mean that the other events we witnessed have been avoided?  We should not risk any more disturbance to the time-line."  Isca was well aware that his hurry to leave this era and return to the Razielim fortress had little to do with temporal anomalies.

Raziel chewed his lip pensively.  "Perhaps - but one thing yet worries me - I seem to remember that Lord Roland was successful in turning back Kain's armies from the gates of the Stronghold.  From what Vorador tells me, even the combined forces of Sarafan and Cabal may not be enough when Kain makes that advance – as he surely will.  We should stay long enough to ensure that the battle ends in the desired result, then I will be satisfied that the true course of events is being followed once again."

Isca reluctantly acquiesced, and Vorador retreated into his mansion, his curiosity satisfied for now.

*

Not twenty miles away, the vampire in question slumped on his throne, the darting shadows thrown by the dim firelight disguising his weakened condition.  To the casual observer, he was Kain, conqueror and ravager, unchallenged master of all he surveyed.  To better-trained eyes, such as those of his Head Inquisitor who appraised him even now, the Master of the Vampires appeared lacklustre: almost desiccated.  The strain of creating his ever-growing army of fledglings was severely taxing his reserves, and he for one would be glad when his elite came of age to sire their own.  Transitory weakness notwithstanding, still he exuded a formidable presence, his unwavering scowl ensuring that his minions did not meet his eye unless spoken to, and then only under duress. 

The current object of his undiminished wrath was the Head Inquisitor, whose armoured form awaited his word in a pose of anxious contrition.

"You were overcome by Vorador and his rag-tag band of reprobates?"  Kain's voice, though fainter than usual, betrayed his anger and incredulity.

"They have united with the Sarafan, my Lord.  Their forces . . ."

Kain interrupted, rising to his feet despite expectations.  

"Do _not_ tell me that you retreated from humans."  The Master Vampire's voice warned of the consequences of such an admission, as well as belying his revulsion for the mortal herd.  The Head Inquisitor wisely remained silent, eyes lowered in shame.

With a foreboding exhalation, Kain stalked stiffly towards his trusted guard, voicing an aside as he passed.  "I will deal with you later."  

The Inquisitor stiffened, head quickly inclining in acceptance.

Turning his attention to the remainder of the assembled throng, who numbered some thirty Inquisitors as well as nigh on a hundred of his 'regulars', Kain gave his orders.

"The Sarafan Stronghold is almost within our grasp.  Only one line of defence separates us from our ultimate goal."

He commanded their rapt attention, every one of his recruits awed as always by the sheer charismatic energy and strength of purpose emanating from the future Emperor.  They awaited the naming of their target with bated breath.

 "The Tower."

*

Plated feet crunched steadily on dry earth, the measured stride bearing witness to recent years of strict, uncompromising drills.  Against the inky black of the Nosgothic night loomed a darker silhouette, a towering bastion of granite and steel, its sloping sides pockmarked with innumerable murder-holes and arrow-slits.  The Tower.  The last, impregnable defence of the valley in which nestled the Sarafan Stronghold.  From their positions within the bosom of the cold, stone fortress, a most unlikely group of comrades viewed the inexorable advance of Kain's army.  Sarafan knights stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their age-old nemeses, some of whom were not even destined to be born before the lapsing of several centuries.  Roland, flanked by Vorador and Raziel, watched the enemy's progress with a species of reserved aplomb.

"I appreciate your support in this, Raziel."

The Dark Lord cast a wry, sidelong glance at the fabled knight: the legends of Lord Roland's persuasiveness were true.  Despite his better judgement, and his reservations on meddling too deeply in the flow of the time-line, he found himself being swayed by the young knight's pitch. Raziel would have been hard-pressed to refuse the Sarafan's argument for their joining in the skirmish - even if it had not been for the persistent demands of his restless offspring:  Isca was spoiling for a fight.  Only one thought gnawed at Raziel's mind as he prepared himself to meet the onslaught: Kain. In spite of his assurances to Isca that he would not engage his sire here, he found himself wondering whether he would be able to resist the lure of power represented by the slaying of his own executioner. Holding to the knowledge that Kain's death here would inevitably result in his own, Raziel readied himself to face his temptation.

Isca had elected to join the ground troops before the darkened tower, knowing that, in the absence of an immediate resolution of his problem, the surest cure for the tense unease that assailed his system was a few hours of mindless violence. So great was his anticipation of the coming bloodshed that he had taken to humming an old Vampire battle-dirge, which was unfortunately beginning to play on the nerves of the Sarafan troops who surrounded him.  They began by degrees to edge away, leaving the psychotically humming Razielim in a space at the centre of a steadily growing and empty circle.  Isca continued regardless.

The charge came swift, the steady march of the almost invisible troops degenerating into a wild stampede without so much as the warning of a battle-cry.  The Sarafan outside the Tower found themselves in the thick of combat almost before they realised their opponents were upon them.  Isca, his vampiric senses soaring as battle commenced, perceived what the humans could not: the Inquisitors were leading the fray.  He smiled for the first time in days as the Razielim blade that seemed at times an extension of his own arm, sought vampire flesh with strokes as precise as those of a butcher's cleaver.  He did love his work.

As the battle progressed, it became apparent that Kain's army had learned from their assault on Vorador's mansion, this time resorting to specialised, ranged-attack weaponry.  At various points around the battlefield lay human corpses, riddled with arrows.  Nor were the mortal contingent the sole recipients of the Inquisitors' poison barbs – several of Vorador's vampire allies strode unsteadily from foe to foe, their appearance that of humanoid porcupines.  Angered by the imbalance, Isca cast about to locate the source of the assault, soon espying several archers atop a rocky ledge to the far left-hand side of the field.

With a combination of recklessness and determination, Isca fought his way up onto the lofty precipice, where he encountered a quartet of Kain's regulars, each armed with a sturdy crossbow.  Dispatching the four with little distress to himself, the vampire turned at the telltale thud of a landing body to find himself face-to-face with the Head Inquisitor.  For such he assumed his foe to be; clad, as were all the Inquisitors in jet black scale- and chainmail with accoutrements of bright steel, the leader of Kain's elite was set apart by the scarlet sigil embossed on its breastplate.   Isca's features twisted into a feral grin.  Vorador had told the out-of-time Razielim of the history of this particular miscreant: one of Kain's earliest recruits, the bastard had apparently earned a bloody reputation even before being lured under the Conqueror's command - the Head Inquisitor's subsequent deeds had ensured the pitiless sadist a place in the annals of infamy. Isca decided that the Inquisitor's head would make a fine addition to those already adorning the gates to the Tower.

The first cunning upstroke launched by his untried opponent almost unbalanced the overconfident vampire, forcing him to quickly re-evaluate the terms of the duel.  As the fight wore on, it became apparent to both combatants that the Head Inquisitor was no match for Isca in brute strength  - there were few who were - but the wiry creature's speed and agility kept the stronger vampire constantly on his toes.  Before long, Isca dropped his guard in a well-practised attempt to gain ground on his adversary, and, as though expecting this very move, the Inquisitor sidestepped his advance. Pivoting with alarming celerity, the maille-clad figure dealt the Razielim a vicious slash across the un-armoured expanse of his back.  Roaring in pain, and almost blinded by rage, Isca managed to retaliate with an extraordinarily precise backhand blow at the Inquisitor's head.  His nemesis ducked with a fraction of a second to spare, and the deadly stroke that would surely have resulted in decapitation instead caught the helmet a glancing blow, removing it and sending it clattering over the edge of the precipice.  Isca hastened forward, almost able to taste the golden nectar of triumph, only to stop short as the Inquisitor turned her golden eyes and pale features towards him, her mouth contorted in a grimace of pain.  

In a moment of freezing horror, Isca recognised his own fledgling.

Author's note:

Did I fool you? 

I've been planning this for weeks. : )

Review response:

**Vladimir****'s Angel:**

Re your query about Isca:  Nope.  : )

*waves a thankyou to Kain*  

Hugs and puppies indeed!

And erm, you're not s'posed to _like evil Kain, you twisted loony, you. *wanders off, Blood Omen 2 clasped behind her back, whistling innocently*_

Wouldn't it be great if they did a BO2 era figure of Kain?  *makes a gurgling, drooling sound a la Homer Simpson in a steakhouse* 

Hmm . . .

*whips out pen and paper and starts making plans for a hostile takeover of Blue Box Toys*

**MikotoTribal:**

And I thought I was being sadistic in chapter 8.  Holy cow.  Poor Donald!  Not that I have any particular liking for the verbally-challenged duck, but you don't normally associate that level of violence with cartoon characters.  

Actually … *envisions Itchy and Scratchy in any episode except 'Porch Pals'* 

I take it all back – do what you like to Donald, Goofy and Mickey, I don't care!  : )

**Deionarra:**

Yeah, I was cringing about that line – I did try to wipe out all the Disney influences, but that one just managed to sneak through.  I just wanted to show a little opposition from Vorador's cronies . . .

Oh, and you can blame Mikoto for the red herring about Freya – she keeps guessing my plot lines!

**To Everyone:**

*hands out cheese graters to anyone currently wearing a leather catsuit*

You may need these.

**Deionarra:**  Sex in a battle – haha!  I finally get it.


	11. Betrayal

Author's Warning:  Cheese graters at the ready, people.  No, they're not for offensive purposes, so Deoinarra, you can stop threatening Moebius with yours!  

Depending on your disposition, you may need them to get through this chapter - but it had to be done.  : P

*

Isca froze, his sword still raised aloft for the killing blow, words failing him.  The woman stared defiantly back from where she lay sprawled on the ground, knowing that she was defeated and expecting his stroke.

"What are you waiting for," she taunted, "My permission?"

Isca stood as though petrified, the quintessence of a warrior transfixed by Gorgon eyes at the moment of victory.

"Freya?" he managed, when he had found his voice, which for a change was hardly more than a whisper.

Declining from the obvious response, the woman replied, "Finish it."  

Seeing from the faint shaking of her former mate's head that he was unwilling or unable, she added with a hiss:

"I would.  Given the chance, I wouldn't hesitate."

As the Inquisitor perceived that the vampire was backing down, lowering his weapon, she seized her chance and scrambled to her feet, scooping up her own blade as she did so.

"What the blazes are you doing here?" demanded the thoroughly confused vampire, who was currently torn between relief that the images at the Chronoplast had proved false, and utter bewilderment over his fledge's apparent new allegiance. 

"Escaping the death to which you consigned me, 'lover'." She spat.  

When Isca's confused head-shaking convinced her that he was not going to respond, she added, by way of a sarcastic reminder:

"The Hylden."  Kain had long ago enlightened her as to the identity of the marauding beasts from the descriptions she had given.

"They Hylden?"  Isca was understandably perplexed.  "Where do they come into this?"

The woman accorded the vampire a look that spoke powerfully of her scepticism. "Enough of your insincerity – let us end this."

Isca backed off a few feet further, other, more urgent questions nagging at his mind.

"Even if what you say is true, why would you join with Kain?"

The Inquisitor replied with a sneer, "He offered to teach me things I needed to know." She circled the vampire slowly, watching for signs of a lowered guard.  "I almost went insane from your abandonment of me, but Kain became my mentor.  He saved me from the path of self-destruction I was following."

Isca's eyes narrowed.  The kind of time-scales the woman seemed to be implying were beginning to worry him more than a little.  

"How long have you been here?"

"Long enough to see the foolishness of banding with such failures as you and yours!"

Isca brushed the insult aside.  "Drop this charade and listen to me."

"Why should I give you even a second of my time?" demanded the woman hotly.  "You were never so generous with yours – now stop stalling and fight me!"

"It doesn't have to end like this," managed the vampire between half-hearted attempts at parrying her vicious blows. "Come back with me."

"Pity you weren't so concerned about having me around when it counted for something." She retorted.

"Freya, if you had just waited," he began, ducking another head-height slash, "We still plan to arrive back in the future one day after we left."

"That will be one day too late, 'Sire'," she informed him, her voice dripping with venom.  "The Hylden will already have overrun the Clanlands."

It was obvious to Isca from the Inquisitor's continued brutal slashes that she intended to finish him if possible, and if not, to force his own hand against her.  The man was hard-pressed to find a compromise.

"We will destroy the Hylden brood before it can gain a foothold – the future will be free of them when we return,"  

Seeing that she was either not listening or deliberately ignoring him, Isca took drastic action.  Enduring a violent slash across the chest in order to manoeuvre himself into closer quarters, he caught the Inquisitor's sword arm and engaged her in an approximation of a bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides.  

"Listen to me, you stubborn heifer," began Isca, his patience sorely tried by now, "We had no idea . . ." his voice trailed off as he became increasingly aware of their proximity to one another, the closeness reminding him of his bond with his fledgling, and, holding her infuriated gaze with his, he stated: 

"It's not too late for us."

The vicious scowl that had marked the woman's expression began to fade as the sincerity of the male's feelings was borne out in his eyes.  She relaxed slightly in his embrace, a look of uncertainty in her eyes.

"Sentimental fool."

The vampire gave a fair approximation of a relieved smile, and allowed his grip to slacken somewhat, still drinking in the welcome and unexpected sight of his mate.  Abruptly, he doubled over in agony as the woman brought a knee up sharply to connect with his groin.  He sank to his knees with a groan, his darkened vision highlighted with pinpoints of swirling light while his vampire stomach essayed to convince him it needed emptying.  

The ground shortly began to shake with the arrival of Kain's Inquisitor squad, their plated feet clearly visible to the agonised vampire where he knelt forehead-down against the cool earth.

"Shall we dispatch him, Inquisitor?"

There was a brief pause and the sliding, metallic 'shink' that told of the sheathing of a weapon.

"No. We will take him back to Kain.  It will be for him to decide this one's fate."

The pain was beginning to fade slightly, although the vampire's throat was still constricted as though filled with foreign objects. Isca chanced a glance at the female looming over him, his tortured eyes evincing his incredulity.

"Freya?"

The look of fury that erupted on his former lover's face was the last thing he saw before a plated boot caught him full-force under the chin.

*

The Tower had fallen.

Beneath the crushing weight of the furious onslaught of Kain's undead, the stalwart defender of the pass that opened onto the Sarafan's most valued holding had been breached.  Its ancient stone defences lay sprawled around its ravaged base, the pale, bloody trophies that had once adorned the spiked gates now replaced with heads torn from the slain of the Sarafan and their Cabal allies.  Though it had galled the former Vampire Lord to fall back before the callow armies of his sire, the retreat had been necessary.  Raziel watched with growing disquiet as Kain's unholy wretches tore the Tower apart, stone by stone, casting some of the more manageable remnants onto the plain before the Stronghold itself.  When retreat became inevitable, Raziel, much to Lord Roland's disappointment, had refused to accept the sanctuary of the hallowed walls - the great building held far too many memories - and so he had contented himself with a tent in Vorador's camp, situated a short distance to the east.  The losses had been higher than expected, and to have been driven back to the very threshold of their territory by so few - the Dark Lord was beginning to wonder about the course of the future after all. 

*

Elsewhere, a steadily recovering Kain was feeling both the pleasures of victory and the burdens of power.  

When word had been brought to him that the Tower had fallen – contrary to his low expectations after the fiasco in the Termagant Swamp – he had been elated, or as close as the would-be Conqueror ever came to such an emotion. However, it seemed that every victory carried an inevitable drawback: now that the glory of the night's deeds had faded, he was faced with the tedious task of distributing punishment. The list of recipients of Kain's wrath grew longer with each passing day, and this evening was no exception, having seen a steady parade of unfortunates troop past on their way to their doom.  For the most part, these were prisoners-of-war, captured alive and destined to serve as examples to the allied forces, but the luckless also included those of his own company whom the trials of combat had proclaimed traitors or weaklings.  At a word from the vampiric Emperor, each was consigned to a particular fate according to his misdeed - or age, in the case of vampires.  The younger undead were chained to sandstone columns outside his keep to await the burning touch of the sun, the last dark seconds of their lives punctuated by their own terrified screams.  The elder vampires who had earned his displeasure were brutally dismembered with blunt instruments, their pain-wracked torsos cast into the wasteland that was slowly spreading like a fungus outside the walls of the stronghold.  These unfortunates were doomed to shuffle along the arid, cracked ground in limbless horror for all eternity.  

Kain wondered idly why so many insisted on opposing him.

In a moment of respite between sentencings, he chanced a glance at his Inquisitor, who had been reinstated to her usual position to the left of his throne - his dissatisfaction at her underachievement in the Swamp had faded now, as had the marks of his anger. As always, she attended her Lord in full armour, her slightly dented helmet tucked under one arm, her expression one of carefully-schooled detachment.  Kain sighed heavily as the door to the Hall opened again: he was beginning to tire of this unvarying work, his handing out of torture for each individual taxing his patience: he was increasingly reminded that had a busty meal awaiting him in his chamber, and he was beginning to feel his inventiveness was wasted here.  His attention was shortly attracted by the entrance into the chamber of a powerfully-built immortal, whose garb and armaments were of unfamiliar design. The creature was looking a little the worse for wear, as were the unusual number of guards who accompanied him.  

His appraisal of the stranger was interrupted as his Inquisitor leant across to speak a few words of explanation in his ear. A supercilious smile graced Kain's cruel lips as he nodded understanding, his eyes never leaving those of the obstinately glaring vampire.

Kain rose with less difficulty than he had of late, striding down the broad steps before his throne and circling the prisoner with scrutinous interest. Having made a full tour of the seething captive, he came to a halt before him, affording him the full intensity of his scornful gaze. 

"My Inquisitor tells me you were her maker."

Isca stared him down emotionlessly.

"Did it trouble you to abandon her to the Hylden?"  Kain inquired, his tone almost nonchalant.

"That was never my intention." The vampire informed him.

"But it was your hand that wrought the deed: you are therefore responsible for her current situation."

Isca sighed impatiently.  "I never had you pegged for a time-waster, Kain – get on with it."

Although impressed by the younger vampire's fearlessness, Kain nevertheless continued to taunt him.

"Take a good look at your fledge, boy. When I found her she was eking an existence ambushing stray brigands in the sewers - that was the best she could expect as your get.  Now that she has allied herself with me – you see what she has achieved?"

Isca fumed inwardly, determined that the Vampire Master would not see his goading was having an effect.

"I see that she has achieved the status of puppet and pawn – the best anyone could hope for under your command, you manipulative bastard." 

Kain's silence was worse than his derision.  There were few who had seen the Master Vampire in a state of fully roused wrath, and it was obvious to the unconsciously retreating denizens of the room that Kain had not taken kindly to the insult.  He afforded the younger immortal a look that spoke eloquently of the fate he had planned for him.  His momentary glower was replaced by a smile of unparalleled cruelty as he returned to his throne, glancing once at his Inquisitor before resuming his seat.

"Death by torture." decreed the Master Vampire impassively.

**Author's Notes:**

Mmm – smell that Edam?

I think the next few chapters will be up fairly quickly – I've got a lot of the upcoming events already written.  

Review Response

**Deionarra****: **

Naughty girl! Reading the end before the beginning.  Tchoh! How am I s'posed to surprise you if you do that?

**Vladimir****'s Angel:**

Kain has better hair?  Bu – bu – but pre-fallen Raz has that lovely liccle ponytail thingie (which I admit might constitute a mullet if he were ever to let it down).  I concede.

Kain figures will retail at around $400, but they will constitute part of the standard away-team kit for our impending invasion of Nosgoth.  : )


	12. Atonement

Author's note.

Gimme those cheese graters back.

*hands out Moulinex food processors* 

This could get tough.

*

Freya's heartbeat quickened as her master gave the initial order for punishment. She held her breath as she awaited his elaboration.

"Flay him alive."

As the sentence was passed, Isca's gaze rested resolutely with that of his fledgling. If any guilt at all was to be felt by the creature with whom he shared a powerful blood bond, he would ensure that it was at its utmost. He still felt the mental connection, and despite the lack of emotion on her face, he sensed that the woman felt it too.

The Inquisitor's eyes met those of the condemned, the dark spheres accusing, retributive, forsaken. All at once, unwanted images began to pour into her mind, their forced suppression lifted by the unexpected appearance of her sire. In her mind's eye, a pair of slashing blades fended off ancient vampire armies, their owners back to back and grinning in the delirious joy of combat; elsewhere, a dying immortal lay in a darkened cave, the woman at his side offering her own lifeblood so that he might survive; the scene changed with steadily growing clarity to her first hunt at his side, and the unmatched rapture of their first joining. As assailed by doubts as she was, Kain's Inquisitor remained steadfast, the magnetic presence of her Lord but a few feet to her right a stalwart assurance of the propriety of her decision. At a distracted flick of Kain's fingers, the guards prepared to escort Isca from the room. The condemned cast one last searching glance at his fledge, seeking the slightest glimmer of remorse. Seeing nothing hopeful in her hostile, resolute gaze, he shook his head and suffered the guards to lead him to his fate.

*

Freya passed the remainder of the evening with less than half an ear on Kain's condemnations, and as soon as the Vampire Master had retired to his quarters, she had turned her footsteps in the direction of her own. The Inquisitor's tread was hesitant, despite the familiarity of the shadowed hallways, and the comrades she unwittingly ignored as she progressed were struck by the haunted cast of her face. Freya began to reflect: Kain's perceptive manipulation of her unbalanced fledgling mind had focused on the seething hatred she harboured at her sire's betrayal. He had later convinced her to channel her considerable aggression towards the attainment of the unrivalled ecstasy she experienced in the kill. The results had surpassed even the future Emperor's bloodthirsty expectations. Now, unwilling though she was to admit such thoughts to herself, the unexpected re-appearance of her sire had stirred memories and feelings she had long since abandoned: the alluring familiarity of his supremely masculine form, the deep, arresting tones of his voice, and, most significantly of all, that look: the one she knew full well he reserved only for her. All these elements had quickly combined to form a knot of uncertainty in her gut.

The Head Inquisitor stopped short and slapped herself, mentally. None of this mattered. She had a new purpose now, stemming from her complete dedication to the Conqueror's cause – there was no time for such trifling sentimentalities, nor frivolous thoughts of fleeting fleshly pleasures. Her steps become more assured as she entered the hall that opened onto her quarters. Abruptly, she stopped, her hand lingering on the doorknob. Despite her efforts to the contrary, she could still sense her sire's presence in the Sanctuary. Giving vent to a vexed sigh, Freya was suddenly struck by a seemingly innocent idea - she would prove to herself that Isca meant nothing to her: she would march down to the prison cell and taunt him, even as Kain had done. That would make her feel better. Knowing that the vampire's punishment would be delayed by the sentences of those already ahead of him in the queue, she hastened towards the holding cells, deadly certain that her desire to see her sire wither before her wrath was the only reason she was running.

The stronghold's prison area was an abomination. Dank walls dripped slime and limescale in alternating hues of verdigris and cream, the moist atmosphere adding to the discomfort of those unfortunate enough to have earned a stay of execution. Considering that the entire structure was barely three years old, the area was deteriorating with unnerving celerity, and had from the earliest days become home to a multitude of creatures of both the scurrying and slithering varieties. Freya hurried from room to room, urgently seeking the one that held the creature that would soon feel her righteous ire. The last door on the left opened onto the sight she sought. The perfidious vampire fumed within the confines of a small, barred enclosure, his gaze centred on one of the two guards that flanked the door. From the intensity of his glare, Freya surmised he was either trying to Charm the man, or unnerve him by the sheer malevolence of his incomparable glower. Even if his use of the Dark Gift was not to succeed, he was apparently not doing too badly in his secondary aim.

Isca looked up as the woman entered, a low growl escaping his lips. 

"Come to gloat?"

The Inquisitor did not respond. Her hand hovered an inch from the hilt of her sword, a new idea consuming her as she realised the power to finish him was in her grasp. Just a quick step forward, a thrust of a keen blade through the bars, and vengeance would be done - she would at last be appeased for his abandonment of her to the Hylden. Her breathing quickened, and before his frowning eyes, she drew the weapon, instantly alerting the two guards – one of whom dropped headless to the ground beneath a curving arc of scarlet. 

"Traitor!" screamed the other, drawing his own blade a second too late, and shortly joining his compatriot in the spreading pool of blood on the floor. 

The cell remained silent for several long, drawn-out seconds, the Inquisitor's eyes locked on the two cooling bodies until a tantalising voice broke the silence.

"For a moment there I thought you were going to finish me."

"Don't speak too soon," she replied, eyes still on the ground.

Isca arched an eyebrow. "Then why kill the guards?"

Freya finally risked meeting the vampire's uncertain gaze with her own distant one, her confusion evident in the lost look she gave him in response. 

"I don't know."

"Open the door." The command left no room for insubordination.

Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult; the fledgling's heart was hammering a militant rhythm that her system was having trouble containing - she wondered distractedly if Isca could hear it. As Head Inquisitor, she was fully aware of the implications of letting this prisoner go free, and despite fears for her own safety, Freya knew she wanted nothing more than to make it happen. Feeling almost sick with trepidation, she snagged the keys from the hook on the opposite wall, turning to see that Isca was gripping the bars of the cell tightly, his concentration obvious as he mentally willed her to complete the action. Freya paused with the keys in her hands, indecisive: it was yet a monumental decision for her to take. She vacillated, the influences of her sire vying with those of her mentor for supremacy, until at length the tense silence was broken as the corridor outside filled with the sound of running footsteps. The guard's dying cry had alerted the Inquisitors to the danger. There was only one door to this prison chamber, and Freya was currently standing over two dead allies with a bloody sword in her hand. This did not look good.

"Get back against the wall." She hissed. Isca frowned, but complied.

Reaching the door before the stampede arrived, Freya interposed herself between the Inquisitors and the cell and halted them before they could enter.

"Where have you been?" she demanded angrily. "The prisoner has escaped and the guards are murdered!" Freya stepped forward, sword hidden behind her back, exerting the influence she held as Head Inquisitor.

"Go! Search the grounds – and bear in mind I will be having words with Kain about the dawdling speed of your response!"

Thoroughly chastised, the remaining Inquisitors bowed in acceptance of her order and hurried off in search of their quarry.

Freya turned once again to the cell and her waiting sire, finally sure of her course of action. With every ounce of Kain's influence over her screaming in defiance, she unlocked the door. 

The action was tantamount to opening Pandora's Box: Freya had no idea whether the being about to emerge from the cell would prove himself friend or foe, and now that his freedom was a foregone conclusion, she was uncomfortably aware of each step the unknown quantity took in her direction. With one hand ever hovering close to the hilt of her weapon, she stepped back to allow him to exit.

"A wise choice." advised Isca, his demeanour reminiscent of a storm cloud about to break.

The pair regarded each other in apprehensive silence for a moment, each wondering if the other was going to make an aggressive move. Freya was armed, but fairly sure that it wouldn't deter him – it certainly hadn't the previous day, as evidenced by the rapidly healing but nonetheless deep scar across his chest. Freya quickly averted her eyes. Isca, for his part, knew he would need the woman's help to escape, but was prepared to act if necessary. Freya nodded implicit understanding of the situation and poked her head around the door to check the environs.

"Follow me."

A short but nonetheless nerve-wracking flight brought Isca and Freya to a balcony at the end of an upwards sloping corridor, the narrow terrace offering an escape route via a long but feasible drop to the ground. Freya indicated the line of trees that flanked this eastern side of the fortress, their dubious safety beckoning from a distance of a few hundred metres - the vampire should be able to clamber down and be out of the grounds before anyone were the wiser. With a regretful smile and an enjoinder to return to his men, Freya clapped her sire lightly on the shoulder and turned to leave.

"Where do you think you're going?" He demanded.

Freya eyed him with a fatalistic air. "To undo my wrongs."

"Don't be ridiculous," he snapped, taking her by the wrist, "They'll kill you."

Freya resisted, pulling back towards the stronghold. "If you had any idea of the atrocities I've committed these past few years in the name of that . . . monster . . .you'd understand why . . ." 

"Bah! Don't give me that martyr rubbish! What's done is done." He continued, dragging her towards the edge.

"I want to atone," insisted the woman, wrenching her arm free.

"You rescued me – that counts as atonement. Now let's go." 

Isca's attention had been caught by the approach of several of Kain's Inquisitors, who had spotted the unusually-clad vampire unfettered in the company of one of their comrades. Time was getting short.

"No." she stated firmly, the set of her jaw reminding him of just how stubborn a wench she could be when she put her mind to it.

"No?" The vampire's incredulity was boundless, as was his fury, and in a rare moment of vindictiveness, he invoked the seldom-used influence of his bloodline. The link between Sire and Fledgling offered the maker some means of control over unruly offspring, the wrath of the sire conveyed by a sensation of boiling in the youngster's blood. Despite Kain's corruption, Isca's influence was still considerable, and his efforts were shortly rewarded as Freya cringed miserably in response to the intolerable sensation in her veins. Nonetheless, she continued to back towards the approaching pack, shaking her head to stress her resolve.

"Oh, fine." Snapped the irritated vampire, "You want to stay here and sacrifice yourself in some melodramatic display of self-immolation, then far be it from me to stop you."

The ruse was working: the woman looked unsure. As she glanced back towards the approaching Inquisitors to ascertain their progress, Isca's gauntleted fist caught her upside the chin with a brutal crunch of metal on bone, and the world faded to black. 

"I owed you one." 

**Author's Note**

Gah! Slush! I never thought I'd sink this low. But then, as I said, this story has nothing to do with me, except that it comes out of my fingers (which, by the way, are really sore since I bought a guitar on Saturday and I have since spent several hours annoying my other half with horrendous interpretations of Bon Jovi riffs).

*Awaits her fate, fully understanding if reviewers wish to make demands to see blood spilt*


	13. Informer

Freya opened her eyes to see a broad expanse of green canvas, the rippling, snapping motion of the material leading her to the educated guess that she was in a tent. As she moved to sit up, she found her progress impeded by the sudden appearance of a pair of scimitar blades, above which hovered the faces of two Elite guards she recognised.

"Isca!" shouted one, obeying a formerly given command.

The vampire in question broke off his examination of the remains of his armour and approached, waving them both away. He stood in threatening silence before his errant fledgling.

Freya rubbed her jaw, waggling it from side to side to check its movement.

"I'd forgotten about that right hook of yours," she informed him with a rueful half-smile.

"One of many things you would do well to remember," replied Isca sourly. "Get up."

The tone of his order was enough to assure her that she was not out of trouble yet, despite his assurances in Kain's stronghold. She rose to follow him as he led her between a number of tents that were clustered irregularly about the muddy field, fully aware of the hostile glares afforded her by Sarafan and Vampire alike. Sometime during her imposed nap she had been relieved of her vambraces, greaves and breastplate, leaving her in her chainmail shirt and leather trousers. This was probably prudent, as the silvered accoutrements had marked her undeniably as a partisan of the Vampire Master, and would undoubtedly have worsened their reception of her at the camp - if that were possible.

Shortly, Isca stopped before a large, peaked pavilion, set at the heart of the field, and drew aside the entrance flap, motioning to her to proceed him. Freya stepped inside and instantly froze in her tracks. Three guards stood at intervals around the edges of the tent: the first, judging by the familiar vampiric armour Freya took to be one of Vorador's get; he was flanked by one of the Razielim Elite and a sturdy Sarafan warrior. However, it was the figures who occupied seats at the wooden table at the rear of the tent that arrested her attention and forced her premature halt. To the left, eyeing her with distaste, sat Vorador himself: Freya could only imagine how many of his troops had met their demise at the hands of her Inquisitors; to the right sat Lord Roland, his expression one of outright hatred – he was probably still seething over her merciless - and public - dispatching of his beloved agent. In the centre, and on his feet, loomed Raziel, his own expression unreadable. The atmosphere in the tent was one of tangible menace: Freya had not sensed an aura of such concentrated antipathy since the night she had walked unwittingly into Antaris' death-trap at the Sarafan keep.

A solid push from behind sent her stumbling stiff-legged into the pavilion, leaving her with the distinct impression that she had just been thrown to the lions. Raziel addressed her first, his gaze steady and emotionless. 

"You stand accused of treason."

Freya was incredulous. "_Treason_?" she glanced from Vorador to Roland then back to Raziel, who was apparently acting as a neutral party in this. 

"Since I owe allegiance neither to the Vampire Cabal nor the Lord Protector of the Sarafan, would you mind explaining what exactly brings you to that conclusion?"

Raziel frowned, his expression implying that she should already know. "You betrayed your bloodline."

Freya raised an eyebrow at the hypocrisy. "Quite the contrary, surely."

He moved quickly on to the questions they had prepared. "How long have you served Kain?"

Growing increasingly irate at Raziel's apparent double standards, she retorted, "About nine hundred and ninety-seven years less than you did." 

The Dark Lord's eyes flared briefly in warning, and Vorador glanced at him suspiciously. Freya caught the interchange and chuckled darkly.

"No, I don't suppose you've enlightened your newfound allies on that score, have you?" Ignoring the death stares she was receiving from the figure behind the table, Freya continued heedlessly, addressing Vorador directly. 

"You were not aware that he himself was closer to Kain than anyone? That he was the first-born of his favoured Lieutenants? That he spent a millennium undertaking deeds of unequalled callousness in Kain's name, helping to subjugate the land in its damnation and bring about Nosgoth's Twilight?"

While the figures around the table rose to their feet, demanding explanations, Freya felt her arm seized in an uncompromising grip, and shortly an infuriated voice hissed in her ear:

"Do you have any idea how difficult it was to prevent Roland and Vorador from stringing you up the moment I brought you into camp?" Isca felt the woman's frame tense as the reality of the situation was brought home to her. "You told me you wanted to atone - do _not_ waste this opportunity."

Freya lowered her head, relenting. She could only guess what sort of discourse her usually laconic sire would have had to undertake on her behalf to arrive at this juncture. She glanced again at the three figures before her, to see that Raziel had managed to forestall Vorador and Roland's questions, and was looking at her expectantly.

"Three years."

Raziel resumed his seat, nodding his approval to Isca. 

"And in that time you have been privy to his plans."

Freya closed her eyes, the true depths to which she was about to sink becoming clear to her. She nodded silently.

Raziel leaned back in his chair.

"Whenever you're ready."

Isca's grip on her arm tightened again and Kain's Head Inquisitor began to talk.

*

"Is there anything of relevance in all this tripe?"

Freya paused in her speech to regard the irate Sarafan.

"This is useless!" continued the Lord Protector. He had kept his peace until the woman had begun to tell them of Kain's plans to march on the Sarafan Stronghold. 

"She has told us nothing we did not already know."

At a further insistence from Isca, Freya added a final, vital piece of information. 

"Hendstadt."

Roland's eyes snapped in her direction. "What of it?"

"Kain controls it."

"I think not," began Roland indignantly. At the woman's fateful nod, he rose to his feet, fists clenched.

"This 'Hendstadt' - it has strategic significance?" queried Vorador.

Through gritted teeth, Roland answered, his eyes ever on the face of the Inquisitor.

"It's our fall-back position. It's the only village in the valley north of the Stronghold – if the security of the compound is broken from the south, Hendstadt holds extra troops and munitions for a counter-attack."

"Not any more." Freya corrected him.

With a loud curse, Roland thumped his fist on the table. Raziel quieted him: he had seen the look of dawning realisation that had begun to bloom on Freya's face.

"Speak."

Freya clenched her jaw, irresolute. She had already divulged the majority of Kain's plans – what difference would another admission make? Besides, the more time she spent in the presence of her former allies, the more she was starting to appreciate the profundity of her mistake. The flow of information by this point was almost willing, and as her sire moved around to stand at her side, she found herself wondering anew at her previous actions. A further persuasive contraction of Isca's claw provoked an unexpected shudder as she reflected on the fate that had been averted for him - he looked much better with his skin on. She decided to comply. 

"If Kain realises that I have been brought here, he might suspect this interrogation. As I mentioned, he plans to march on the Sarafan Stronghold in a week's time, when he has added sufficient numbers to his fledgling army - but if he suspects that you know this, he may move his plans forward."

Vorador remained unconvinced. "He may simply decide to pick another target, one unknown to you."

Raziel shook his head. He knew Kain well enough. Roland too was otherwise persuaded.

"Everything he has done in the last three years has been in preparation for this one attack. He will not be deterred when he is this close." Freya advised them.

"Then there is no time to lose." Declared Roland, striding toward the door. "Are you with me?" Raziel and Vorador gave their respective answers by moving to accompany him. As the remaining three guards trooped from the tent, Freya observed Isca and his sire in conversation at the exit. Although the initial words that passed between them were inaudible, she caught Raziel's parting comment, for his head was turned in her direction as he made it.

". . . Or I will."

The tent emptied, leaving her alone with Isca.

The tense, oppressive atmosphere that had prevailed whilst in the company of Roland and Vorador would have been a welcome release from the sheer, gut-churning uncertainty of this encounter. Freya almost wished Roland would come back – his hostility had at least been a known variable. When she had first seen Isca during the fracas outside Vorador's mansion, the shock had been overwhelming: in fact, his appearance had constituted more than half the reason for her calling the retreat. Later, when Kain's punishment for her failure had left her feeling ashamed for backing down in front of the object of her long-harboured loathing, she had vowed that the next time they met, he would be the one running away. Now that she saw things in a clearer light, in the company of old allies and away from the corrupting influence of Nosgoth's ravager, Freya was utterly convinced that Isca would never have abandoned her intentionally. Despite this realisation, the woman found she could barely meet her sire's eye as he regarded her in silent disapproval. She knew how bitterly disappointed he was: it scathed, it burned, it twisted her insides. She desperately needed his forgiveness, but after her atrocious actions towards him, she didn't feel she deserved it. 

Isca stared at her dispassionately.

"So . . ." she began, her throat suddenly dry. "What about me? Am I to go with you to battle?"

Her sire remained silent a moment before answering. 

"Can we trust you?" At her hesitation, he added, "If we were to go up against your own troops tonight, with Kain leading the pack, would you be certain of your loyalties?"

"I don't know," replied the woman honestly, wretchedly.

"That doesn't help, Freya."

As he called her by her name something inside snapped, ending long months of domineering control and bringing her close to the brink of tears. She hid it well, though, straightening up and taking a deep breath as new purpose gave her strength. 

"I want to fight at your side again."

Isca stepped closer, his scrutiny intense as he endeavoured to fathom the depths of her resolve.

"No."

Freya almost crumbled. It had taken most of her courage to say those words. She watched in disbelief as Isca turned and left the tent without so much as a backwards glance.

*

Author's Note.

Heh. I'm so mean to my characters.

Review Response:

**Kittie**! Welcome back! Thought we'd lost you.

**MikotoTribal****:**

Hmm . . .

*rereads previous chapter then wanders off trying to figure out what strange idea Mikoto's got into her head **this time***


	14. Defeat

Leaden air weighed like an extra suit of steel on the already heavily-armoured bodies of the knights before the Sarafan Stronghold. Overhead, a sullen sky glowed a sickly yellow-orange, the overcharged thunderheads expressing frustration at their withheld power through an occasional dazzling flash across their bloated underbellies. Forked prongs of blue-white energy danced on the distant horizon – the storm was on its way. The plain itself was well-lit with a smattering of small bonfires, their glowing flames signifying that the Sarafan would not have to cope with the reduced visibility associated with a night-time battle, as well as offering a convenient means of disposal for Kain's fledgling guard. 

Roland, Lord Protector of the Sarafan Stronghold, stood side by side with a battalion of his own knights; Vorador and the vampire warriors of the Cabal; and Raziel, with his eight remaining Elite. Roland was reasonably happy with the situation so far: thanks to the information gleaned from Kain's Head Inquisitor, the allied forces stood ready and waiting before the object of the Conqueror's rapacious desire, and although it had been too late to call for extra troops from distant strongholds, the Sarafan Knight was reasonably confident of success. The only additional boon he now prayed for was rain.

The company fell silent as a massive shadow began to detach itself from the gloom at the far side of the plain. From where the allied forces stood, it resembled nothing so much as a boiling, turbulent black cloud of heaving, bristling belligerence. Kain's fledgling army was on the move. As the mass approached, the allies were able to perceive the silver-haired figure that stalked at the head of the line, the deadly curves of the Soul Reaver gleaming from its cradle in one clawed fist. Hale and hearty once again and oozing supreme confidence, the would-be Emperor advanced until he was less than a hundred feet from the Lord Protector's position outside the Stronghold before issuing his challenge.

"Surrender!" grinned the prospective Conqueror, knowing the response before it was uttered.

Lord Roland laughed at the ridiculousness of the demand. "Not tonight, nor any other while I still draw breath."

"As you wish," replied Kain affably. He was in a much better mood since he had finished creating his fledglings. His gaze roved over Roland's new collaborators; Vorador he knew, and he accorded the cat-eyed immortal a condescending leer before tossing some acerbic comments in his direction:

"Having fun with your pets, Vorador? And there I thought I'd seen the last time you would soil your own hands by entering into battle." The green-skinned immortal scowled, but kept his peace.

With a satisfied smirk, Kain glanced at the other figures at Roland's side, quickly identifying the impetuous creature who had made off with his Head Inquisitor, before his gaze settled at last on the winged creature who accompanied him. Kain's eyes met those of Raziel and narrowed sharply, sensing some unnameable, but nonetheless virulent emotion emanating from the cerulean-skinned vampire. Sloughing the uncomfortable feeling as a snake sheds its skin, he glanced at his troops, gauging their eagerness, and pumped his fist into the air as he gave voice to the battle-cry.

"Vae Victus!"

The bloodthirsty challenge was taken up and echoed by hundreds of ravenous throats as the army surged towards its ultimate and long-sought-after goal. The fledges were hungry, as much for blood as for victory, their scheming master having forced them to fast before the battle in order to take full advantage of the natural violence born of the Vampire Thirst. As the opposing forces rushed together with the bellowing of forceful challenges, and the resounding clank of sword meeting shield, it quickly became apparent that although the fledglings were no match for Raziel's Elite, nor Vorador's Cabal, the Sarafan Knights - who made up the greater portion of the army - would have serious trouble in tackling them. However, the tide of battle waits for no man, living or undead, and the sheer brutality of the scene unfolding beneath the pregnant skies ensured that the Gods of War, who doubtless watched in anticipation, would be thoroughly entertained tonight.

Lord Roland took on his enemies with the honourable ferocity for which he was famed. His blade sought the hearts of Kain's damned, deeming each dispatch a release for the tortured soul within. His troops were inspired by the lead of his heroic figure, the firelight flashing from his polished silver armour lending him a radiant aura, and despite the desperate dearth of men on their side, Roland and his troops were optimistic. Right would triumph.

Isca was not enjoying the combat as much as usual. Despite the ready availability of easy prey, the vampire was plagued by thoughts of Kain's corruption of his fledge, and in spite of her recent attempt at turning, repenting and atoning, he was as yet unsure of what lasting damage might have been done. Furthermore, he was still wracked with uncertainty at the aptness of his parting words to her: it had taken much of his considerable willpower to deny her request, and he had been compelled to expel himself from the tent before his own resolve weakened. Although it had been an unexpected joy to hear his estranged lover express her desire to join him in battle once again, Raziel's orders had made him hesitate in giving the answer that had almost escaped his lips. Despite the Inquisitor's informing, his sire was far from convinced of her allegiance, and had warned Isca that if for any reason he suspected her continued loyalty to Kain, he was to dispatch her - or else he would undertake the deed himself. All in all, it was better that she remain in the camp until this final battle should be resolved - Raziel had given his assurance that they would be moving on as soon as he was satisfied with the outcome. For the first time in his unlife, Isca hoped the fight was over quickly.

Kain was lost in the delirium of bloodshed, the pure pleasure he derived from the kill second only to the knowledge that but a few puny soldiers separated him from his ultimate goal. An almost sophisticated smile curved his lips as he hacked and slashed his way through the ranks of the enemy, Nosgoth's ravager taking the opportunity whenever it arose to sneak up on an unsuspecting foe from behind, savouring the extra tang of adrenaline that tinged the blood of the surprised before Death claimed them. He moved as an unstoppable wave through the Sarafan ranks, leaving a broken path of inhuman destruction in his wake. Ever and anon the flow of combat brought him close to the winged vampire, who often caught his eye, but whenever he made a move to engage the tantalising foe, the blue-skinned coward would lose himself in the crowd. Kain was fast becoming annoyed.

Raziel, for his part, was sorely tempted. Every time his darting feet brought him close to his sire, he was reminded that this youthful Kain was no match for his own strength and skill, and every time this seductive thought flirted with his mind, he found himself increasingly inclined to try. And, after all, why not? Why not set the world to rights? Was his own existence and that of the few Elite who remained worth the price? With one single action he could prevent Kain's centuries of dominion before they could begin. The self-same power-lust surged over him again, just as it had in Moebius' Chronoplast chamber: the unequalled pleasure he had experienced at being in control of his own destiny – and now potentially that of Kain - sending him ever closer to the brink of attempting the deed. Only his new-found sense of his own worth stayed his twitching hand. 

Isca watched his sire closely. He had been appalled at the expression he had seen on Raziel's countenance whenever Kain drew near, and had since endeavoured to keep himself between them. He was disturbingly aware of the consequences of Kain's death here (he did not for one minute envisage the Conqueror emerging victorious from a potential match with his own sire) and was therefore taking steps to ensure that Raziel's temptation was kept to a minimum. He fought on regardless, the spilling of the blood of the Kain's spawn giving him some measure of vicarious satisfaction against the creature he knew neither he nor his sire was allowed to kill.

*

Less than a mile away, Freya sat numbly on one of the wooden chairs in the pavilion, the ache in her chest reminding her to breathe occasionally. The woman stared disconsolately at the entrance flap from where Isca had departed less than an hour previously: she did not blame him for not wanting her to stand by him in combat – she fully appreciated that it might take a long time – years perhaps - before the vampire would trust her again. Freya sighed heavily, accepting the difficulty of the situation, only then realising that her keen ears were picking up the sounds of combat from the nearby battlefield. It occurred to her then in a moment of utter gut-wrenching clarity that Isca was out there fighting for his life – fighting against Kain and the fledgling army she had helped train, having refused her help and put himself in danger yet again - and damn the stubborn git to hell and back, she was going to go and help him whether he liked it or not. Rising to her feet as her decision was taken, Freya left the tent, appropriated herself a weapon and headed purposefully for the Stronghold.

The woman was shortly racing onto the battlefield, closely observed by several pairs of suspicious eyes. She quickly spotted the embattled Isca where he stood almost surrounded in the centre of the field – it was just typical of him to be in the thick of things. Fortunately, however, it was evident that his battle with Kain's fledges was barely taxing his strength; heads, limbs and streamers of blood jetted in all directions as the immortal cut a swathe through the pack that beset him. Freya allowed herself a small smile as she watched him in combat, finding herself struck again by his martial prowess, just as she had been in a skirmish not too far from this very spot, barely three years ago. With a slight shake of her head, she started for his side. As Freya's determined jog brought her level with a natural opening in the crowd, she saw an unwanted sight that made her blood run cold. 

Kain. 

Nosgoth's ravager was laughing maliciously as he impaled and disembowelled and decapitated, his ash-white skin daubed red with his victims' lifeblood. Suffering to the conquered indeed. She felt the seditious pull, as she did so often in his presence, the desire to maim and hurt and leave her victims dying in slow, mortal suffering blooming once again as though he were some unholy catalyst, or propagator of evil thoughts. She tore her gaze away from the sadistic Conqueror to see her one-time lover where he fought for his life, his deadly strokes, though still unmatched, seeming a little less fervent than usual. Freya's decision was made in less than a second, the resolution sending her pelting in Isca's direction with her sword drawn.

Raziel's second-in-command was starting to feel the strain of fighting without a decent incentive. Every swing was a chore, and for the first time since Raziel had welcomed him into this night-time world of unending violence, this indomitable warrior, this unflagging engine of destruction, was feeling almost tired. No sooner had the thought struck him than he found the strain had been taken from his left hand side – he was no longer being attacked from that quarter. Chancing a glance during a second's peace, he saw Freya assiduously working her blade through her former comrades, her back to him as she thrust and parried, keeping the fledgling attackers at bay. Isca smiled to himself. Bloody-minded woman. Trust her to do exactly what she wanted. With a suppressed chuckle threatening to escape his throat, Isca threw himself back into battle with much more gusto, his smug pleasure at the woman's presence doubling his already improved combat efficiency. 

The tide had turned.

Kain's fledgling forces, as vicious and voracious as they were, still hovered at the lowest rung of the vampiric evolutionary ladder. Those who encountered the brutally-slashing blades of the Razielim or the merciless arms of Vorador's contingent met with swift, sudden release. The Sarafan knights, however, aware of their own disadvantages, used those of the fledges against them, setting their sensitive skin alight with burning brands, or hurling their reluctant bodies to the waiting flames - and the equally expectant waters. The fledgling numbers were thinning, and Kain knew it.

Isca's jubilation reached new heights as Kain's forces began to beat a reluctant retreat, and, falling back on old habits, he clapped a nearby Sarafan ally on the back, sending the unsuspecting fellow reeling into the distance. His apologetic smile faded as he watched Kain and Freya exchange one last glance, the slightest, almost imperceptible shaking of the woman's head assuring him that this particular alliance was over. Kain's disgusted sneer sealed the impression. 

As the future Emperor departed, his keen mind already plotting his revenge, he reflected on how much he liked the armour worn by the guards of the winged warrior's army.

Amidst howls of approbation and derisive comments aimed at the Conqueror's remaining departing troops, Roland emerged to drape an arm over the shoulders of the leaders of his Vampire allies. 

"Well, my friends, the battle is won, the enemy is driven from our door – this is where the celebration begins. Will you join us?"

Raziel and Vorador exchanged a glance.

"I have my own plans, Lord Roland," replied Vorador hurriedly. "Although I appreciate the offer." He added with a gracious nod.

Roland turned his contagious grin on Raziel, who hesitated, assailed again by the strength of the unpleasant memories associated with the Stronghold. However, the new-born nihilist in him was swayed by the knowledge that this man would keep Kain from getting his claws on the Sarafan sanctuary as long as he lived. Furthermore, he would maintain a standing of 'honourable foe' with Vorador and his Cabal until the end of the golden days of his rule. Taking another glance at the Stronghold, Raziel acquiesced. It was about time he overcame past dreads. 

Raziel now turned his gaze on Isca, who signalled with a tilt of his head that his sire should go on without him. The field slowly began to empty.

Isca now turned to deal with his wayward fledge, his expression and tone belying the severity of his displeasure.

"I told you not to come."

Biting down on the initial retort that rose to mind, Freya swallowed her pride and replied, in a voice that was almost meek.

"You told me you didn't want me at your side if I wasn't sure of my loyalties."

"And now suddenly you are? How convenient."

Freya's brows knitted together into a puzzled frown. There was something wrong with his face.

"Did you even stop to consider the possibility that the sight of your former master might trigger your past fidelities?" he asked, his mouth seeming to twitch as though with a nervous tick.

"I saw him long before I ever got to you." 

Isca tensed at this new piece of information. "And you weren't tempted?"

Freya gave a fair approximation of a sly grin, tinged as it was by remorse and underlying desires. 

"He's got nothing on you."

There was definitely something amiss with her sire's expression: he now looked for all the world like he was sucking a lemon. As she opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong, Isca's control broke, and the grin he had been suppressing for the last five minutes erupted onto his face with a flash of pointed canines. He chortled.

"Doting fool."

Freya's outrage at the insult lasted all of two-and-a-half seconds, before she conceded to the light-heartedness of his teasing and allowed herself a brief chuckle. When his laughter had run its course, Isca's expression became somewhat more serious. He hesitated, as though giving the matter some serious consideration, before extending a bloodied claw towards her in an unmistakeable gesture of friendship. Although it was not quite the reception she had hoped for, Freya was fully cognizant of the fact that her recent actions might well have ensured that their involvement might never return to its former status. Nonetheless, she managed a smile as she clasped his hand. 

As the two made their way back to Vorador's camp (Freya had the distinct impression that she would be less than welcome at the victory celebrations in the Stronghold, and equally so at the party of doubtless orgiastic proportions which would surely ensue at Vorador's mansion), they conversed on recent events, exchanging stories and filling in gaps in each others' knowledge.

"When are we leaving?" asked Freya finally, her desire to put as much time between her and the events of the last three years making her question almost a plea.

"At first light," began her companion, snapping his claws as he remembered her disadvantage. "We had better find you a helmet."

"Thanks a lot." Replied Freya, oozing sarcasm. Seeing his raised eyebrow, she relented, adding, "Just as long as you don't leave me behind this time."

"You needn't worry on that score. I think even Raziel is convinced you're far more of a liability when you're out of our sight."

Freya was not exactly sure how to take that comment, so for the moment she contented herself with pleasant thoughts of leaving the still powerful sphere of the young Kain's influence. They approached the camp in companionable silence, each taking in the sights and sounds of the night, alive as always to vampiric senses. As they entered the deserted camp, Isca turned aside momentarily to examine the body of a Sarafan knight that lay unmoving before the entrance to a tent. Turning quickly to his companion to inform her that the body had been drained, he froze, his eyes wide and his mind barely able to process the horrendous sight that awaited him. Not ten feet from him, Freya stood immobile, transfixed by an undulating blade that extended from the hand of a maliciously grinning, silver-haired fiend. 

"No-one betrays me without paying the price."


	15. Review Response

Review Response:

**Vladimir's Angel:**

*Waves a hello from sunny Aber*

Offensive smoothies! HA! Love it. Do you mind if I quote you on that? 

Had any deliveries yet? ; )

**MikotoTribal**: 

Yup, that's why I was so glad to unload them onto your house for a while ; ) *tut-tuts* They're like a pair of hormone riddled teenagers – you'd never think he was 83, would you?

**ShadowRayne:**

I'd love to watch the Blood Omen FMA again to check that bit out; unfortunately, I lent my copy to a 'friend' who promptly left town with it in his bag and haven't yet been able to track down a replacement. Grrrr! If I could just find out where he is, I could send in the troops with automatic cheese-graters . . .

**Arch Enemy/Ebony:**

*hands over a glass of water and a bottle of Optrex*

Sorry! Had a long weekend away visiting folks – but it has given me time to think about the rest of the story. I'll try to update soon – oh - except I've got a lot planned for the rest of the week, and will probably spend the weekend up to my eyeballs in green satin bridesmaids' dresses (who the hell puts their bridesmaids in _bottle green_, anyway?!).

Author's Note

Nightcrawler rocks! : ) 

(just don't get me started on Wolverine . . . *drool*)

I realise this has nothing to do with my story, but I think I may have some new obsessions . . .


	16. Turning Point

Isca's eyes snapped open, his mind jolted into instant wakefulness by the intensity of the disturbing images projected by the dream. Running a claw through his sleep-tousled hair, he rose and exited the tent, instinctively seeking the chill of the pre-dawn air: would that damned vision haunt him forever? A few deep breaths helped him regain his composure, and a quick glance around the camp showed it to be still mostly deserted, the majority of the allied troops having elected either Lord Roland's generous hospitality, or the dubious lure of Vorador's debauched bacchanalia. From the look of the six Elite who were even now reluctantly staggering into camp, they had opted for the latter, their sleep-deprived, if smug expressions painting a vivid picture of the night's adventures. Isca eyed the fading, tell-tale marks adorning several of the group's chests with sardonic amusement, quickly schooling his features to some semblance of authoritative remonstrance.

"You'd better be in a fit state to travel today," he began sternly, singling out the foremost guard. "What in the world happened to you?"

"We took Vorador up on the offer you turned down," he replied with a blissful grin. "Anyway," he added, affording his superior a mocking glance, "You're a fine one to talk."

As Isca craned his neck to look down at his own chest and shoulders, another of the Elite piped up, "Looks like someone went ten rounds with a spotted hellcat."

Unable to suppress a grin at their good-natured ribbing, he waved the chuckling, stumbling group on, turning his attention back to his original activity. A few minutes' scrounging rewarded him with the items he sought, and, halting only to snag a nearby helmet from its position atop a leaning pike, he returned to the relative darkness of his tent. He paused as the flap fell closed behind him, a sudden, mischievous whim curving the edges of his lips into a wicked grin. Dropping the rest of the items into a pile near the door, he jammed the helmet - a full-visored, pink-plumed Sarafan monstrosity – onto his head, and resumed his previous position on the floor, propping himself up on one elbow for a better view. When it became obvious that his companion was not about to wake, he took to tickling her nose with a strand of hair until at last she batted a hand at the irritation. The clunk of fingers against metal rendered her swiftly awake, and the sight that greeted her horror-struck gaze sent her leaping backwards into a corner of the tent, cloak clasped before her. The woman's shocked yelp would have been instantly recognisable to anyone who has ever succumbed to the twin influences of libido and alcohol as the unmistakeable '"Oh My God I Didn't, Did I?" Morning After Scream'.

When the tinny chuckle emanating from the helmet combined with the clarity of vision that comes with full wakefulness, Freya was at last able to identify her bedfellow. He was not Sarafan.

"Ooh, you swine!" she scolded, as he removed the gaudy helm. "That wasn't funny," she added, hurling his cloak at his head to stress the point. It took her a moment to realise that the action had left her with a distinct lack of clothing. 

"Gimme that back!"

Isca waggled his eyebrows appreciatively and stuffed the cloak beneath his recumbent form.

"Fine. Keep it then." said Freya, easily spotting her discarded pile of clothes on the other side of the tent. Approaching them was slightly more difficult, what with Isca making playful grabs at her legs as she attempted to pass him, but she eventually reached the garments, lifting her chainmail shirt as she gave the other vampire a half-serious, quelling glare. Her attention was quickly drawn back to the shirt as a foot-wide section detached itself from the centre and tumbled to the ground with the accompanying tinkle of loose rings. The sound first brought back the unique _shrring_ noise his claws had made as they had sheared through 12-gauge sprung steel, followed by a recollection of the impression she had had when he had followed her into his tent the previous night: it had been like being dropped into a blender with a sexually frustrated Tasmanian Devil.

Isca examined his claws innocently.

Dropping the remains of the armour with an resigned sigh, Freya scooped up her trousers. They at least were intact – they would need new laces for the front closure, but were wearable. Not so her cotton undershirt: it looked like it had picked a fight with a particularly vindictive paper shredder - and come off worse. At her second frustrated growl, Isca relented and stood to retrieve the pile of accessories he had collected from the camp.

"Here. I thought ahead." He advised with a self-satisfied smile.

"That's a first." Freya nevertheless accepted the items graciously, dressing quickly before her lover's apparently insatiable appetites should manifest themselves again.

Isca contented himself with watching for the moment, his mind too dwelling on the events of the previous night. He was never quite sure how he had managed to keep up his friendly, detached act all the way back to the camp, but the look on Freya's face when he had surprised her at the tent had made his strenuous use of self-control more than worth it. He leaned back on the ground, hands beneath his head as he watched his beloved dress. On the surface, he was visibly pleased that the woman had finally seen sense and returned to where she belonged. On some other deeper and more private level, lurked the conviction that she had in some way picked him over Kain, and that made the besotted vampire almost deliriously happy - not that it would ever show.

Having donned the remainder of the clothing and armour Isca had brought for her, Freya spread her arms wide for his appraisal.

"So, how do I look?"

Isca regarded the ill-fitting shirt, mismatched gloves, and enormous shoulder guards critically. "There's something missing."

Reaching behind him, he picked up the Sarafan plate helmet and tossed it in her direction. Freya caught it and stared at him in disbelief.

"You _are_ joking."

"I think it's quite fetching." He countered, his face edging ever closer to that lemon-sucking expression she had witnessed the night before.

"I am **not** wearing this."

"It's either that or fry."

"It's got a _pink_ _plume_!"

Isca nodded in agreement. "Very feminine."

At her mock-despairing gaze, he rose and took the helmet from her. "I just prefer you with your skin intact."

His words unleashed a torrent of guilty associations as Freya remembered how close she had come to allowing Kain to inflict a tortuous death on the man before her. Isca, for his part, instantly wished he could take back his words – although he had spoken true, it had not occurred to him that this particular comment would invoke such disturbing connotations. The vampire shortly found himself caught in a tight clinch as Freya threw her arms about his neck and buried her face against his shoulder. He lowered his own head, returning the embrace with one arm while reaching up the other clawed hand to stroke the distressed fledgling's hair.

"The feeling's mutual," came the eventual muffled reply from somewhere near his chest.

*

When Raziel eventually returned to camp from Roland's celebrations, Isca was not the only one to note the subtle difference in the Dark Lord's demeanour. It was almost as though a night of facing his fears and entering the Sarafan Stronghold for a purpose other than killing or revenge had wrought a considerable transformation in his character. The change was not necessarily for the better either: although the former Soul Reaver was seemingly imbued with steely purpose, this newfound determination only served to emphasize the hard-hearted attitudes he had already begun to evince. Raziel seemed almost callous in his attitude towards the remaining Elite, and treated Freya with scant tolerance. Only Isca, it seemed, was immune from his scathing derision. 

Fortunately, now that the battle was over, and the desired outcome had been achieved, Raziel made it abundantly clear that he wished to depart their current timeframe and continue with the mission with which he had been charged. That afternoon therefore saw the remainder of the Clan Razielim return to the Time - Streaming device, the prodigious figures of Dark Lord and his Elite accompanied by a much shorter figure in baggy armour and an incongruous Sarafan helmet. As they entered, Isca's persistent questioning finally convinced Raziel to enlighten them on his plans.

"We need to seek Kain."

"Then look no further," came an amused, carrying voice from the far side of the device. Nosgoth's Emperor stepped into the light.

Freya tensed, as did Isca, who moved almost instantly from his position at her side to stand a little further forward, half-blocking her view. He need not have worried: this was the older Kain, his alabaster skin darkened to onyx, his youthful fervour replaced by fatalism. He was, however, armed with the Reaver, and any situation that now linked Freya with the Emperor and the blade set his nerves on edge.

Raziel regarded him with suspicion.

"How convenient. I assume that your presence here is no coincidence."

Kain strode forward, yellow-green cords of muscle rippling as he moved.

"There is no such concept, Raziel. I had hoped you would have come to appreciate that by now." 

He stepped closer, eyeing his son's new form with a glimmer of uncertainty. "_Everything _is predestined."

"Poppycock."

"Pardon?"

" 'Poppycock', S_ire_. Rubbish. Rot. Claptrap." Raziel elucidated.

Kain glanced perplexedly at the others in the room, mutely requesting assistance.

"Have you gone mad?"

"No," replied Raziel, circling his nemesis slowly, while Kain watched bemusedly. "No thanks to you, I might add." He stopped before him, meeting his gaze with concrete conviction.

"There is no such thing as destiny, serendipity, fate or karma - we are the masters of our own actions. We may be controlled by others, manipulated by those clever and power-hungry enough to bend us to their will; but there is always choice."

He leaned closer to his sire, his eyes flashing. "_You_ should know that."

Kain wavered, shocked, even as Moebius had been, by the strength of his Lieutenant's convictions. 

"What do you plan to do?" he asked, the room's occupants shocked at the cracking of his voice – had Raziel truly frightened him?

"Not me - you." replied Raziel "You are going to undertake the action you should have completed millennia ago." He stepped even closer to Kain, who, to the complete and utter astoundment of all present, backed off nervously. The tipping of the scales of power was almost palpable. 

"_You_ are going to restore the balance."

Author's Notes

Sorry about the confusion with the last couple of chapters (ie same one going up twice), folks: flaming server was playing up again. Chapter 14 doesn't exist indeed! Well, I beg to differ.

As you can probably tell, Deionarra's comments about this story getting a bit depressing were taken to heart. Light relief and cheesy grins galore (I hope).

It took me ages to decide how to make this first integral scene play out – I wrote a couple of completely different versions of it – but I eventually decided on the silly, subtle, happy one (as opposed to the scary one or the one that would have made this a NC-17) – hope everyone's content. 

Review Response:

**Deionarra****: **

Evil woman! Now I've going to have 'Circle of life' going round in my head all day. This is NOT a suitable song for an evil dictator. 

*wanders off looking for that Bolt Thrower album she bought on a whim and never listened to*

Kain's tangent musings – it was supposed to be a temporal paradox thingie – he gets the inspiration for his lieutenants' armour from . . . his lieutenant's armour. Ah well.

**Shadowrayne****:**

Thanks! Will find it tonight! 

*approaches megalithic home computer with 2k/s download speed, dreading the amount of time it's gonna take*

**MikotoTribal****:**

X-2! Dark Phoenix! Woohoo!

Ta for the review. Now where's your flaming update, woman?

Me? Cruel? Cliffhanger? Nah! See? It all worked out fine in the end. Oh and the end is coming. I think next chapter will be the last. 


	17. Denial

As the doors to the Chronoplast swung reluctantly open, Nosgoth's bleak future was greeted by a most unlikely parade.  At the front strode Raziel, blue-skinned, black-winged, dressed in his trademark leather trousers and his recently-forged, plated pauldrons.  Behind him walked Kain, one-time Emperor of the cracked wasteland he had inexplicably chosen to rule, his hands restrained behind his back, and an indecipherable expression on his face.  Six Razielim Elite flanked the prisoner, their own armour glinting in the sanguine haze of the late afternoon sunlight, and their footsteps cautious - as much for fear of the individual they guarded as the unknown perils of this barren wilderness that was once their home.  Bringing up the rear was the daunting figure of Isca, Raziel's own lieutenant, who dwarfed the slightly-built, bizzarely-clad female marching at his side.

The entire party, with the exception of Raziel, had been utterly astounded when Kain had seemingly succumbed without question to his former Lieutenant's commands, only to find their perplexity doubled when their Lord had, with apparent ease, snatched the Reaver from Kain's loose grasp.  Later, when the Emperor had submitted meekly to being restrained by Raziel's Elite, Freya had begun to suspect that something was seriously amiss.  Now, as she surveyed the landscape about her, her uneasy senses seemed to be alerting her to minute changes; but every time some flicker of imagined incongruity caught her eye, causing her to twitch her gaze in that direction, there would be nothing to be seen.  The most disturbing thing about these flickers – imagined or otherwise - was that they reminded her of the energy pattern of the blast wave that had knocked her flat outside the Sarafan Stronghold shortly before they had found Raziel.  And, as she let her eyes rove over her surroundings, she became increasingly convinced that the scenery was changing - slowly, subtly - almost imperceptibly, but nonetheless truly, leaving her with the unpleasant impression that Kain's changing of the timeline was finally starting to catch up.

As they progressed to the Warp Gate, the strangeness of the landscape was seemingly echoed in the steadily developing change in Raziel's persona; a change evidenced by the Dark lord's growing callousness towards his men, his increasing disdain for his sire, and ultimately, to complete the impression, his use of that laugh – the one to which Freya was well used from her time as Head Inquisitor.  Why on earth should so sadistic a sound be emanating from Nosgoth's Messianic saviour?  Eventually, the group emerged from the Warp gate in the unmistakeable, arid, almost clinical wasteland of Kain's later dominion, but a few hundred yards from the Sanctuary of the Clans.  

Freya surveyed her surroundings in surprise, addressing Raziel directly in spite of the conviction that he would doubtless bite her head off for her audacity: 

"I thought we were going to deal with the Hylden first,"

Kain pre-empted the cutting retort that Raziel had been about to utter: "I have already curtailed the Hylden threat."

Raziel glanced at his sire in sneering surprise.  "How unlike you, Kain – to undertake such a menial chore yourself."

Kain smiled, his expression smug despite his bonds.  "I have never shirked a task that involved bloodshed, Raziel."

The Dark Lord humphed in agreement, before inquiring, "What was it that caused their return?"

"Fragments of the nexus stone were embedded in the hilt of a sword I found in the Razielim stronghold."  Freya's eyes widened at the news, instantly connecting these shards with those in the eye sockets of her demon-hilted katana: so the presence of the Hylden was due to that of her own weapon.  She eyed the ground with a detached sensation of guilt as Kain continued.  "The latent energy in the crystals opened a rift between Nosgoth and the demon dimension."  

Freya's curiosity about his dispatching of the Hylden shortly overrode the unease she felt in Kain's company, prompting her to ask how he had accomplished the task.

Kain eyed her curiously, as though trying to place the voice that echoed from within the Sarafan helm.  "Once the fragments were destroyed, the beasts were consigned to their prison once again – what was left of them," he added with a bloodthirsty grin.

Freya averted her eyes.  Although this was not the Kain she knew so well, still his presence evoked disturbing recollections of his younger self, and that was sufficient to warrant her keeping conversation to a minimum.

The Sanctuary of the Clans loomed before them, its austere walls echoing with the memories of monumental battles, its gloomy halls still exuding an odour of blood for the amount that had been spilled beneath its steepled roof over the centuries.  As the party trooped into the ill-lit chamber at the centre of the Sanctuary, Raziel looked from the Reaver's undulating blade to a faded patch of blood on the floor: the rusty ochre still stained the tiles where Kain had torn the bones from the untried flesh of his wings.

Raziel chuckled.  "Ironic really, Kain.  That your life should end here – at my hand."  The malice in his voice was unmistakeable.

Freya removed her helmet and stepped forward, her uncertainty at the wisdom of the action the Vampire Lord was about to undertake emboldening her.  

"This is not what you set out to do, Raziel.  Your mission was to bring the human and vampire creeds together in a peaceful solution - what you propose contradicts Janos' advice to you.  Besides, killing Kain could end all our lives."

Raziel glanced at her in irritation, his tone implying her dim-wittedness.  "No, woman - not here, and not now.  This Kain belongs to this time.  From his point of view, he has already sired me – that cannot be undone."

He flashed the Reaver menacingly before the Master Vampire, allowing his prospective victim to appreciate his intentions, already deriving pleasure from the pre-act torment.  

"Ever the showman, Raziel." commented the Emperor dryly.

"You taught me well, 'father'." The Dark Lord grinned back, mind afire with the potential dimensions of retribution that stretched before him in a veritable banquet of sadistic possibilities.

"But why?" persisted Freya, eliciting an exasperated and cautionary growl from Raziel.  "Why would this action above all others restore Nosgoth's balance?  Kain's time for sacrifice is past – the moment of opportunity that he had to complete the deed is long gone."  She regarded the Vampire Lord distrustfully. 

"You're just caught up in some sick revenge fantasy – killing Kain won't solve anything."

Raziel rounded on her, his scant patience evaporating.  

"Perhaps not, but killing _you might make me feel better," he threatened, his aggravation at the woman's incessant banter inducing him to take a step towards her.  He was almost instantly confronted with the scowling countenance of his son as the younger vampire interposed his own redoubtable form between them._

"Stand aside."

Isca remained where he was, silently defying his sire.

Raziel's eyes narrowed. "I gave you an order.  Move aside!"

Isca shook his head slowly, his diminishing trust in his Lord supplanted by his deep-rooted devotion to the woman he now protected.  Seemingly dissuaded, Raziel moved as though to turn his attention to Kain, only to lash out against his son in an action of unequalled heartlessness - the blow knocking Isca violently to the ground, the cruel claws laying open the younger vampire's chest in a three-grooved slash.

Freya dropped to her knees at her lover's side, casting a horrified glance at the perpetrator of the uncalled-for deed.  "What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing – at long last.  I used to shy away from using my power to its full extent – ever keeping a tight rein on it – and for what?  It accomplished _nothing.  I never truly understood the pleasure that comes from fully unleashed power until Moebius fell to my blade."  _

Freya stared at Raziel in realisation and horror.  " . . . _You_ killed him?"

"What of it?  I thought it fitting that the Time-Streamer should die at my hands – he should not have manipulated me so."  retorted Raziel, examining his bloodied claw.

Before she could respond, a horrific scream erupted from the base of the Pillars.  As the three turned, they saw Kain, a look of satisfaction on his face, rise to his feet, effortlessly shattering his fetters and Immolating the guards who surrounded him without so much as a glance in their direction.  His calculating gaze centred on Raziel as the bodies of the last of the Razielim Elite expired in blazing agony behind him.

"You were never destined . . ." came Freya's breathless voice from where she knelt at her stunned lover's side.  At a warning growl from the Vampire Lord, Freya changed her wording, looking from Raziel to his approaching sire in dismay.  "In the original time-line, Kain killed Moebius.  In ending the Time-Streamer's life, you robbed Kain of the chance to ever take the decision to save the land: the Pillars were irredeemable to him from the very beginning." 

Kain continued to stalk forward, an emotion akin to regret momentarily lightening his dour features.

"The fledge is correct," began Kain, pausing to afford Freya a further curious glance. "When I invoked that paradox so many centuries ago, I was trying to change the flow of probability.  In one possible outcome, I sacrificed myself to save the Pillars, and the world flourished; in another, I refused the immolation and the land was damned; the third possibility, the one on which I had counted, would allow me to survive and the land to live again.  That third outcome now holds sway,"  he informed his son with an almost regretful smile.

Raziel frowned suspiciously at him.  "What do you mean?"

"Our destinies have been exchanged, Raziel.  The one flaw in probability that I was counting on has come to pass. . ._You killed Moebius."_

Raziel took a step back, suddenly concerned despite the extent of the power coursing through him.  "What are you saying?"

"You have taken my place in Nosgoth's destiny,"

Raziel shook his head in furious denial.  "No!"

"Your actions precluded the possibility of my sacrifice."

"This cannot be!" averred the Dark Lord, desperately searching for a flaw in Kain's reasoning and finding none.

 "You must die, my son, so that the land can be redeemed.  Would you deny this world its salvation?  You were named its saviour, after all . . ."

Raziel backed away towards the Pillars, the Reaver clutched tightly in one white-knuckled fist, still shaking his head defiantly.

Kain followed, his expression fatherly.  "Give me the sword, and I promise I will end it quickly."

Raziel spat his hatred at his sire.  "You think I would allow you to kill me twice?"

"There is no other way," The Emperor's voice was soothing, placating, fatalistic.

Raziel froze, his sire's words sparking the fire of conviction that had resided in his heart ever since his defeat of the Time-Streamer.  "I would not be so sure if I were you."

Kain hesitated, slightly alarmed by his son's apparent change of demeanour.

Raziel crouched into a combative stance, the Reaver raised high, and his eyes aflame with passion and purpose.  "If you can deny your destiny – then so can I."

"Janos charged you with this mission," countered Kain, glancing about for a weapon with which to defend himself.  "If you refuse to complete it, you condemn us all."

Raziel's features twisted into a sneer as he carefully and spitefully enunciated every syllable of his response. 

"Like father, like son."  


	18. Restoration

Seeing that his adversary had still not managed to find himself a weapon, Raziel leaped from the steps below the Pillars to press home his advantage, the rolling curves of the Reaver's blade emitting a whistling hum as it soughed through the air.  Kain ducked the first slash with inches to spare, throwing his massive frame into a sideways roll which brought him to the burning bodies of the Razielim guard.  Groping amongst the solidifying remains, he brought out a scimitar, its blade still aflame with the melted fat of its owner's body, and raised it horizontally over his head in anticipation of the brutal downstroke he knew was coming from behind.  The Reaver rebounded from the flaming scimitar and Kain regained his feet, twirling the sword in eager readiness, creating a small wheel of fire at his side as he did so.

"You cannot win this, Raziel.  We both know there is no way you can best me in single combat - _I_ created you."

"A mistake for which you will pay with your own worthless life, Kain." retorted the Dark Lord, launching a second attack, the rippling edge of the blade - already blurred by the speed of his blows - making it a more uncertain target for parrying.  Nonetheless, Kain held his ground, matching the angered strokes of his son blow for blow, until at last the inferior metal of the Razielim blade yielded before the undiminished edge of the ancient Soul Reaver.  Feinting to the left as Raziel attempted to force his way through his breached guard, the Master Vampire managed to slash at his opponent's wings with the remains of his shattered weapon.  Feathers ignited.  It was now Raziel's turn to roll along the ground, as he twisted violently in a desperate attempt to extinguish the ravenous flames before they could take hold - and allow Kain to destroy his appendages of flight for a second time. 

The danger passed, Raziel rose slowly to his feet, his lowered head steeped in sinister shadow, to see that Kain had appropriated a pronged staff from a niche on the wall, and stood waiting for him before his throne, the weapon clasped in a two-handed grip.  His scowl faded to an unpleasant smile – what a fitting place for the death of the Master Vampire.  He would kill Kain where he stood, drain his blood and leave his carcass rotting on his throne for eternity.  The Dark Lord could hardly contain his excitement, and with this thought in mind, he threw himself into a final, destructive attack.

From where Freya knelt at Isca's side, she could see every second of the divine duel with crystal clarity, almost as though it was an ecclesiastical image from a stained-glass window, portraying an age-old and eternal struggle. Every few moments, she tore her gaze away to check on her unconscious companion – the inch-deep wounds across his chest were healing, slowly but surely: Freya hoped fervently that he would recover before this battle between immortals brought the Sanctuary down on their heads.  A thunderous crash snapped her attention back to the fight, where Raziel had just thrown Kain against one of the Pillars and was racing forward with the Reaver raised for the kill.

Kain felt something crack as his back connected with the Pillar of Balance – his spine, perhaps.  Not that it mattered.  Whatever injury he sustained would soon be gone – that was one of the undiminished pleasures of undeath -  even after so many centuries - to be safe in the knowledge that scars would heal, that broken bones would mend, that quasi-indestructibility was a great foil for immortality.  The jolt had, however, disoriented him slightly, and so it was that when Raziel lunged forward with the Reaver, his defence with the staff started a few inches too low, allowing his son the opportunity to thrust the point of the blade straight through his heart.

Silence pervaded the Sanctuary.  A titanic heartbeat slowed.  Kain raised his bemused eyes to meet those of his first-born, filled with fury and the indescribable ecstasy of a long-pursued goal finally achieved.  The look of jubilation shortly faded to uncertainty as Raziel glanced around the Sanctuary.  Nothing had changed.  Kain's blood had been spilled on the Pillar of Balance with the Reaver – his own private solution for restoring Nosgoth – but the world remained the same.

Kain, knowing he had been dealt a mortal blow, uttered a low chuckle as he watched the Reaver draw in his own blood – he had never seen the blade's unique capability from this angle before.

"Accept it, Raziel.  You are Nosgoth's last Balance Guardian."  The Emperor's eyes sought those of his son one final time, the expression in them one Raziel had never seen before.  Pleading?  

"Make the decision I could not, and restore the balance."  

Raziel remained irresolute. Was this some new trickery?.  He yanked the blade free from his sire's chest, watching emotionlessly as the mighty form of the Conqueror fell to its knees, one clawed hand clutching at the devastating wound.  

Kain raised his head weakly to address his son one last time.  "What Janos told you was true, Raziel: the Pillars are the lock, and the Reaver is the key – but the sword needs the blood of its twinned soul to activate the arcane magicks of the Pillars.  

"You must use it to spill your own blood." 

Kain keeled over to one side, his knees no longer able to support him, and watched the drama unfold:  Would Raziel be able to make the decision, or would history's vicious circle play out its cycle once again  - with him as the protagonist?  Nosgoth's self-proclaimed Emperor watched as the coin spun in the air again – how would it land for Raziel?  He, Kain, had been defeated at the end, and he prayed in these, his last moments, that his son would be able to complete the task that he could not.

Raziel stared numbly at his own hand, sullied with the blood of his sire, as the truth he had kept from himself became undeniable.

_'I had become what I despised, what I had crossed time to defeat.  I saw the torn body of my son, the battered husk of my father and I knew what I had to do.  This soulless beast, born of Kain's vanity and my own lust for power, had to die.  I gazed in my final moments at the Reaver, at various times and in various forms my symbiont, my weapon of destruction, my soul, and realised that in truth it was nothing but a length of metal – after all, what was a blade compared to the mind that controlled it? It could be my damnation – or my salvation._

_'In a moment of incomparable lucidity, I found myself ready to take the final step, and, turning the Reaver's wicked tip towards me, a point that had tasted oceans of blood, both vampire and human, I fell onto the blade.  In that ultimate moment, I appreciated that despite my vain attempts to convince myself otherwise, I had never escaped my destiny as Nosgoth's saviour – I had only postponed it, and so it was that I found myself on my knees again, with the Reaver penetrating my chest._

_'Agony._

_'Epiphany.___

_'I fell, as I had once fallen into the chasm of the abyss, endlessly tumbling through a sea of a myriad lights until the Pillars' energy began to absorb my lifeforce – the lifeforce of the last guardian.  From a vantage point somewhere above and beyond the skyward-bound columns, I witnessed at last the restoration of the land.  Where Kain's influence had given birth to an arid wasteland, now bloomed a young, green world, rich in the diversity of life.  With what little remained of my rapidly discorporating essence, I smiled.  Far below, in the open space before the ever-dwindling forms of the Pillars, I perceived two figures, bending over the corpses of myself and my father: the saint and the sinner – even as my consciousness evanesced, I was still unsure as to which role I had played.'_

*

Two survivors of the atrocious events of an alternate timeline stood alone before the Pillars of Nosgoth as their full glorious majesty was restored.  Isca, the wounds on his chest all but closed by now, slipped an arm around his companion's shoulders, surprised that he felt so little remorse at the death of his sire.  He glanced down at Freya so see the woman at his side looking distinctly unhappy.

Isca began to feel a little upset at her apparent display of sadness at the Vampires' passing.

"Were they so much to you?"

The woman shook her head, lost in thought.  

"Then why the long face?  The world is set to rights – Raziel finally attained the goal denied this land throughout the centuries of Kain's corruption - surely this is cause for celebration?"

Abruptly, Freya rounded on him with a completely unexpected look of discontent.

"Take a look outside, Isca.  Peace and harmony reign."  Isca regarded his fledge with unease, unsure as to what might be affecting her mood.

"Just what do you think we're going to do here?  Settle down?  Build a house?  Raise a brood of fledglings?  There's no place for creatures such as us in a time of peace."  She replied, her tone disconsolate.

Freya returned to her thoughts: one of the ironic downfalls of those accustomed to living in war-torn times was that he or she was almost always at least half in love with the chaos they helped to control.  Without that raison d'etre, what was there?  For her part, she was reasonably sure she could live without the ordeals of war, but Isca. . . since his Vampiric rebirth, Freya was well aware that he had been born and bred for battle, fed and nurtured on the trials of combat - it was for him she feared.

Isca stepped towards her, taking her in his arms and raising her chin to look at him.  Freya looked up reluctantly to see her lover's face lit by that inimitable grin; the one that was half-way between wolf sighting prey, and imp sighting an opportunity for mischief; the one she knew was reserved for her and her alone; the one that was always contagious; the one that finally reassured her that everything was going to be alright.  She chuckled despite herself as they departed the rapidly dissolving interior of the Sanctuary of the Clans, the Pillars, pristine in their recent restoration, reaching proudly for the star-spangled skies.  As they emerged into the temperate warmth of the night air, ready to face whatever new challenges might await them, Isca asked a final question that reminded Freya why she loved the unpredictable, enigmatic vampire so:

"Do you really think things are going to be _peaceful with me around?"_

Author's Notes:

Anyone who wants to sign up for the Invasion of Nosgoth had better do so now – it's the next fic, and it's locked, loaded and ready for posting (if I can just remember the name of the tavern in Meridian – anyone?).  And if any reviewers object to being portrayed in said fic, please let me know and I'll write you out. 


	19. Epilogue & Review Responses

_Excerpt from the __Los Angeles__ Times, _15th October 2001____

**Search Still On For Missing Programmer**

Javier Alvarez, 22, the mastermind behind the critically acclaimed Soul Reaver series, is still missing nearly two weeks after his mother reported his disappearance.  He was last seen leaving the Yard House on Newport Boulevard, Newport, in the early hours of Saturday, September 29th.  In a statement from Joe Daniels, a former bouncer at the club, Mr Alvarez was a regular visitor, and a well-respected patron.  On the night in question, he is said to have left the Newport Beach Yard House in a hurry, and Mr Daniels is under the impression that he may have been followed.  Police are wishing to talk to anyone who may have seen two individuals meeting the photofits below leaving the scene on the night in question.

[insert dodgy reconstruction of Isca and Freya here]

In a related story, Soul Reaver 2 is on general release from 19th October - see Entertainment Section for details.

*

_Excerpt from The Daily Express, __24th April 2003___

**Millionaire's Daughter Still Missing**

Two weeks after the disappearance of Freya Challenger, estranged daughter of oil tycoon Ted Challenger, there is still no news on her whereabouts.  Ms Challenger, 23, was reported missing from her home in Reading, Berkshire on the afternoon of 10th April 2003.  Two employees of 'The Basking Finance Company', who were the last to see Ms Challenger, are helping police with their enquiries.  Ellen Challenger, 46, mother of the missing woman said in a recent statement to the press: "My daughter is prone to these little jaunts – she'll probably turn up sooner or later.  Wherever she is, I'm sure she can take care of herself."  

Ellen Challenger's new book, "The Key to the Chain on the Kitchen Sink" is on general release from May19th.

The End (No, really- it is.)

Author's Notes

Whew – glad that's over. I really needed to finish writing this series of stories – it was starting to seep through into daily life: not only have I nearly said I'm going shopping in Meridian, I have almost managed to substitute Nosgoth for Egypt in conversation, and come this close to calling my boyfriend 'Isca'…  

*gropes under desk for the shred of sanity she keeps in a jar – it's gone*

Review Responses:

**Arch Enemy/ Ebony:**

Sorry, hunny.  No kinky stuff for Kain – although I did briefly toy with the idea of an alternate timeline Kain / Umah what-if scenario.  Maybe if I get _really inspired. . ._

Oh, and I'm not wearing the snot-green dresses, just making them – personally I'm opting for a little red oriental number, assuming I finish it in time . . .  As for the Absinthe – yikes!  Evil stuff! I've still got a bottle I brought back from Amsterdam about 3 years ago – no-one's been brave enough to finish it yet.  It's 70%, and bears the dubious ingredients list of "substances vegetales".

Hope you don't mind me drafting you for my army – I'm sure your little escapade at the Sanctuary will make up for it, though . . . ; )

**Kittie****:  **

Glad you liked it.  I hope you get a break in your school work soon to carry on with that Labyrinth fic.  I do plan to get around to reading 'The Flame of You' at some point – I started reading ages ago and was intrigued - just need to find the time to read all 150,000 words . . .

**Shadowrayne****:**

Thanks for coming along for the ride (almost all in one go, too!).  Looking forward to your next chapter – since your deadline's past, I'm assuming the update is going to be soon? (hint hint)

**Vladimir****'s Angel:**

*hands over a box of Kleenex*  There, there dear – they're not _really dead. Raz & Kain'll be back soon, honest. Oh, and I was sort of toying with the idea of another Isca & Freya fic . . . dunno yet.  How's that inspiration summoning charm thingie work again? Oh yeah . . . *bangs head repeatedly on desk*  Ow! Inspiration _hurts_, Angel._

**Deionarra****:**

I thought you got your copy of "Inside the Protagonist's Mind" back? ; )  Heh. Yeah, the plot was a bit tenuous, but I'd written myself into a corner – ah well, at least you liked my attempt at Raz-speak. : )

**MikotoTribal****:**

Thankyou u u!  Glad you liked the ending, and the monologue – although that really _was_ the end. *looks right and left at reviewers, laughs nervously and starts backing off towards her lair*

Anyway, enough of that - it's been a WEEK now.  Where's your update?!

**BOING**** BOING BOING!  ****DEFIANCE****! BOING BOING BOING!**

I finally understand what Kittie was going on about now – just took me a few days to catch up with the rest of the world.  Now if I can just get this overgrown calculator to download the trailer. . .


End file.
